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THE RETURN 

AND OTHER STORIES 



THE RETURN 

AND OTHER STORIES 


BY 

GRISWOLD WHEELER 


PRIVATELY PRINTED 


CVUv 



COPYRIGHT, 1922, BY 
RUTH SMEDLEY WHEELER 







* * 


FI ;• 




PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OP AMERICA 


©(^683519 ^ \ 

OCT -5 'll' 1 

Aa Q 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

The Return 1 

What Would You Expect? . ... 21 

The Unconscious Mutt 61 

Still Unafraid 95 

As Yesterday 101 

A Race of Tricksters 115 

The Man He Might Have Been . . 151 

Next 171 

The Greater Joy 193 

Another Light That Failed . . . 209 



THE RETURN 

AND OTHER STORIES 
THE RETURN 

J ULIENNE rose to fame along the route 
of the outdoor theater at Paris, where, 
weather permitting, he daily reenacted 
that epic of childhood — Punch and Judy. 

At the close of each performance, Madame 
F alconne, the proprietress, would pass along the 
rows of weather-beaten chairs, extending a tam- 
bourine on a stick long enough to reach the 
remote occupants of the center seats. But of 
late all had not been well. The mellow thud of 
coins on the tight skin of the tambourine awoke 
such echoes as are caused only by large copper 
pieces of small value. Many even left before 
the end and later invested the money thus saved 
at the gingerbread stand across the way. 
Madame Falconne spoke of their ill-fortune as 
she and Julienne divided the meager returns 
from the day’s efforts. 

“Heaven look down upon her,” she muttered 
devoutly, “it was an outrage.” 

1 


THE RETURN 


Julienne agreed with her. Then he had an 
idea. This generally was the case after a too- 
generous indulgence in absinthe, as many a gen- 
darme could have testified. What the idea was 
he kept to himself. 

It happened near the close of the following 
afternoon and after more absinthe. Madame 
Falconne’s tambourine had reached the distant 
center seats; there came an instant’s silence un- 
shattered by the dropping of a coin. Some one 
giggled, others followed suit, as Julienne placed 
an inquisitive eye to a knot-hole in the green 
planking of the booth. What he saw made him 
quiver with rage. The tambourine was hovering 
supplicatingly before a brawny nurse accompa- 
nied by three wriggling children. But the nurse, 
arms folded upon her ample bosom, sat gazing 
stolidly ahead. Madame Falconne, not to be 
outdone, prodded her gently with the receptacle, 
but without result. The laughter was growing. 
Seizing a wooden mallet, Julienne pounded 
loudly on the side of his theater. The laughter 
died away. In the silence that followed there 
came, apparently from the over-red lips of 
Madame Falconne, the rasping word “pig.” 

The audience sat suddenly at attention. Even 
Madame Falconne started, the voice seemed so 
near and so much like her own. The ungenerous 
nurse was completely deceived. She rose, pushed 
2 


THE RETURN 


high her tight sleeves on her massive arms, and, 
brushing past the children, strode into the aisle. 
Her face, always purple, was now more so, as 
she bore down upon her supposed traducer, who, 
though innocent, was rocking upon her heels 
awaiting the onslaught. And thus these two 
feminine descendants of the good old days dis- 
rupted the afternoon tranquillity of the Champs 
Elysees. 

Rapidly a crowd collected. From his place of 
vantage and safety Julienne watched breath- 
lessly the varied fortunes of his Amazon em- 
ployer. But before victory could be claimed by 
either side a gendarme intervened and placed the 
still struggling participants under restraint. 

The imposed fine was a large one, and, to pay 
her portion, it became necessary for Madame 
Falconne to dispose of her interest in the theater 
to a relative near Fontainebleau. Shortly after, 
she retired to the banks of the Seine and met her 
daily needs by clipping rosettes upon nervous 
and shivering poodles. 

As for Julienne, he soon found employment 
in exercising his newly acquired talent of ven- 
triloquism at the Little Theater. Here it was 
that fortune took him to her heart and his act 
became a heavy success. Here, too, he met La 
Fleur and soon fell madly in love with the little 
French song bird. Of this more later. 

3 


THE RETURN 


It is unnecessary to dwell at length upon 
Julienne’s new act. As has been shown he was 
a man of verve and originality. This led him to 
discard the conventional youthful dummy as a 
receptacle for his voice. Instead he instituted 
a young damsel of plaster of paris. She had 
long golden hair and wore the latest fashions pro- 
vided her by a leading modiste by way of adver- 
tisement. Only her voice as supplied by Julienne 
proved disillusioning, and this of course could 
not be helped. 

It is to be feared that as time went on 
Julienne became slightly decadent. There was 
the absinthe, a subtle thing that gnawed and took 
its toll so gradually that it was scarcely felt. 
And Julienne with increasing frequency found 
himself seated at the small, brown-topped, metal 
tables, in the cool shadows of the arcades, sip- 
ping it languidly. Here, with a cigarette slipped 
casually between his long stained fingers, he 
would sit idly between appearances at the Little 
Theater, dreaming dreams so gloriously tinted 
with the impossible that they made the realities 
of life seem scarcely worth attainment. 

When the Paris season fell away, he would 
pack his portmanteau and tour the German sum- 
mer resorts. By rooming with a family of that 
nationality he had acquired a fair grasp of the 
4 


THE RETURN 


language, which, supplemented by practice and 
light study, became sufficient. 

Of all the cities Baden-Baden was most to his 
liking. But he was always glad to return to 
France and La Fleur, who was working so 
bravely for her dot. 

La Fleur was among those who had expe- 
rienced “the voice that failed.” Opera had been 
her objective. But, when a rarely truthful 
director told her that her ambition was no longer 
among the reasonable possibilities, she had ac- 
cepted the verdict with a brave smile and sur- 
rendered her warm, full voice to the manager of 
the Little Theater. And though her mother and 
her morals had kept her from a too rapid success 
she was at all times a welcome addition to the bill. 
Vaguely Julienne felt that she was too good for 
him. But, when on love-tinged reflection it oc- 
curred that she was also too good for any one 
else he had ever known, the matter ceased to 
trouble him. 

Then came the war, when France on foot, on 
rail, and by taxi, rushed to the front. And Ju- 
lienne in time took his place among his comrades, 
leaving behind the lights and music of Paris for 
the alternately rain-drenched and sun-baked 
trenches. 

It was Julienne’s conceit that he had a peculiar 
sort of courage, well above the average. Then 
5 


THE RETURN 

one day had come the test; he had failed and was 
a prisoner. 

Now he sat dully with others beneath the shell- 
ripped roof of a dilapidated barrack, well behind 
the German lines. Between him and his division 
lay a jungle of barbed wire. And as he pressed 
his slim fingers to his aching eyes, he lived again 
through the humiliation of his capture with that 
queer lucidity derived from complete fatigue. 

He saw the advance upon a strip of woods, the 
sudden cross fire from a concealed battery. Then 
had come the order to retire over rapidly shell- 
pocking ground that was quickly becoming shell- 
pocked. To halt was capture, to retreat meant 
heavy chances for death and mutilation. A part 
of his company had commenced picking their way 
back, many falling as they went. Others failed 
to obey and he had been among them. Vividly 
he seemed again to see the low-stooped backs of 
his comrades disappearing into the dust cloud 
kicked up by the bursting shells. 

Weeks of depression had followed in a foul 
detention barrack. With fertile mind Julienne 
continually condemned himself for the shabby 
part he had played — but little removed from the 
role of a deserter, as he finally concluded. 

Then, because at heart he was somewhat of a 
child and must play, he commenced casting about 
for a means of amusement. Finally one day, 
6 


THE RETURN 


from among a heap of decaying vegetables flung 
within their inclosure, Julienne noted a firm 
white turnip of colossal size. 

Brushing away the flies he drew it out and sur- 
veyed it tentatively. It was slimy from its con- 
tact with the other truck but firm of itself. Care- 
fully drying it over the embers of a smoldering 
fire, he removed it to a far corner of the barrack. 
The detention pen was all but empty that day. 
Many of the prisoners had been removed to ex- 
posed points to dig trenches, despite the official 
denials of their captors that such a course was 
allowed. Julienne, because of his frail-appearing 
physique, had been left behind. 

Ransacking the scant belongings of his com- 
rades, he discovered a small, sharp nail-file ; and, 
seating himself with his back to the wall, he skill- 
fully carved the face of an old woman upon the 
turnip. 

With a charred stick he penciled heavy striking 
eyebrows upon her brow, then neatly seated two 
black buttons beneath for eyes. Carefully he 
arranged a grinning mouth and black and scat- 
tered teeth. As a final touch he raveled the 
strands of an old weather-bleached mop which he 
clapped upon her head for hair. Then, en- 
chanted with the effect, he kissed the turnip rap- 
turously. 

The rest was simple. A torn blanket did serv- 
7 


THE RETURN 


ice for a cape, beneath which hung a pair of 
loose, flapping arms. When a red handkerchief 
was tied about the figure’s head, the effect was 
complete. 

That night, when his toil-worn comrades had 
returned, and eaten their poor excuse for a meal, 
Julienne produced his figure and introduced her 
to the laughing but puzzled men as Grandmere 
Camenbert. Then, seating himself behind her 
and skillfully working her arms and head, he 
launched into the most brilliant of his dialogues. 

As the vile-appearing old dummy held an in- 
sulting conversation with imaginary members of 
the royal family, the men rocked with mirth. 
And finally, when, her arms milling frantically, 
she repulsed the supposed courtly attentions of 
the Kaiser, the shouting laughter of the prisoners 
reached the ears of a passing officer. 

The unaccustomed sound roused his suspicions, 
and, being well armed, he brushed past the guard, 
entered the pen, and strode into the barrack. 
Fortunately for Julienne he had reached his 
denouement and momentarily had paused for 
breath. 

“What means this?” sharply questioned the 
officer, indicating the figure; then gave a little 
skyward push to a mustache of a naturally down- 
ward tendency. 

Slowly Julienne glanced up. He was breath- 
8 


THE RETURN 


ing rapidly. Suddenly his eyes lighted with a 
spirit of reckless impudence and recognition. 
The reply came not from him but from Grand- 
mere Camenbert; it was couched in excellent 
German. 

“Greetings, Max Kirchner of Baden-Baden!” 
said the figure, and then unleashed a jest. 

Quickly the officer bent and threw the rays 
from a small pocket light on Julienne’s face, 
studying it closely. Gradually from beneath the 
beard and dirt and pallor the officer found some- 
thing familiar. 

“Is it Julienne of the stage?” he hazarded. 

“The same,” croaked the voice from the dum- 
my, as it attempted a loose-armed salute. 

Kirchner allowed himself an involuntary, half- 
grudging shadow of a smile. Then it occurred 
that his mess was to hold a banquet the following 
night, if hostilities permitted, also that the officers 
were amusement starved. 

“Enough of this for the present,” he said, after 
a moment’s narrow-eyed thought, adding, “but 
preserve your ancient female. The chances are 
we can introduce her into good society on the 
morrow.” 

After he had left many of the prisoners rolled 
face down upon the floor, emitting queer, sob- 
bing noises that closely resembled stifled 
laughter. 


9 


THE RETURN 


So it came about that Grandmere Camenbert 
made her debut among the mailed fists of Ger- 
man kultur. Her loose tongue rapidly won her 
a place in their approval. 

It was an odd dinner on the following night, 
and Grandmere arrived with the cigars and cof- 
fee. Her sallow features, already wrinkling 
dryly, proved a fitting background for her leer- 
ing button eyes. 

Her monologues she followed with songs un- 
becoming to her years, until the officers, rapidly 
relaxing, offered her wine, which Julienne con- 
sumed. Apparently he knew the crudeness 
which dwelt beneath the kultur of his hearers, 
and for many reasons it was desirable that 
Grandmere prove a success. 

One night, as Julienne and Grandmere Cam- 
enbert were doing their best to oblige, an officer 
recently furloughed from the front approached 
and joined the little group. The novelty of the 
entertainment pleased him immensely. After a 
time he left the room. 

Shortly returning, “A gift for your puppet,” 
he said, tossing something toward the table where 
the figure sat. Falling short of the distance, the 
object dropped to the floor. Julienne, stooping, 
gathered up a small pair of infant’s tan boots, 
soft, pliable, and buttoned together at the top. 
Slowly he turned them in his hands. They were 
10 


THE RETURN 


slightly worn, though the stamp of the Bon 
Marche was still faintly discernible on the soles. 
He noted that one of them was stained and 
darker than its mate — a peculiar, purplish 
red — and suddenly Julienne experienced quick 
nausea. 

“Put them on!” commanded the officer, in- 
dicating the dummy’s burlap-wrapped feet. 

Julienne obeyed, then glanced up at the figure, 
and in its close-set black-button eyes it seemed 
he caught a questioning leer. With a control 
foreign to him he somehow finished the evening. 
But each time as he attempted to lose himself 
in the act his gaze would drop to the stained baby 
boot and he would falter. 

From that night there was something lacking 
in Grandmere Camenbert’s efforts to entertain. 
The officers failed to diagnose exactly what it 
was, yet gradually she lost her sway and fell into 
neglect. Julienne, no longer in demand, was 
detailed to assist in assorting the contents of bat- 
tered-looking freight cars as they rolled in from 
the front, bearing the still valuable wreckage of 
the battlefield. Guns, shoes, and uniforms in 
varying stages of dilapidation he placed in their 
separate piles under the surveillance of a petty 
officer. 

It was hard work, but in the sun and open air, 
and it did him good. New muscles filled out his 
11 


THE RETURN 


narrow back; besides, it kept him too tired for 
much thinking, except at night. 

He had deprived Grandmere Camenbert of 
the little tan shoes, and at the close of day he 
would draw them from his blouse and study them 
abstractedly. Had things come differently and 
he had married La Fleur before leaving for the 
front (he reflected) these same shoes might have 
held the feet of a child of theirs — shoes later to 
he handed about in sport by some Boche. 

One night, as he sat thinking, that old, haunt- 
ing, unwelcome memory again forced itself into 
his mind. He seemed to see the stooped backs 
of his comrades passing off into a cloud of shell- 
tossed dust while he remained behind. 

Finally he rose — on impulse, yet subcon- 
sciously acting on the plan of days. The heavy 
breathing of his fellow captives, sibilant and 
thick, was about him on every side. Picking his 
way among their lax, sprawled forms, he made 
toward the open and sagging door cut by a slice 
of yellow moonlight. 

For a time he stood, as the night slowly dark- 
ened. Beyond the wire of the inclosure was the 
stolid, huddled figure of a sentry leaning heavily 
upon his gun, solitary and motionless as the fig- 
ure of some crane standing asleep in a placid 
march. 

Again Julienne ran his hand into his blouse, 
12 


THE RETURN 


where it encountered the cold metal of a wire 
clip surreptitiously salvaged days ago. The 
moon was now nearly to the hills; if the fog held 
things should be simple. 

Ten minutes more. Then came a gradual, 
starlit darkness. The mist had deepened, the 
sentry was completely hidden. From the dis- 
tance the occasional crackle of artillery drifted 
faintly through the heavy, velvet air. 

With a final glance about, Julienne slipped to 
the rear of the building. Here he rolled aside a 
loose stone from a tier on which the barrack 
rested, then ran his arm beneath the decaying sill. 
After a moment’s tugging he drew out a tightly 
folded uniform. This, too, had been guardedly 
collected in rare, unwatched moments, piece by 
piece, while he sorted the refuse of the battlefield 
concealed beneath his blouse. 

Hastily donning it, he pushed his own ragged 
outfit into the hole and again rolled the stone in 
place; then approached the inner barrier of en- 
circling wires. Easing himself to the dew- 
drenched ground he gradually, one by one, cut 
the jumbled mesh, bending the loose ends aside. 
At last, after much slow, forward crawling, his 
groping hand felt the final outside strands, and 
soon he was free. 

He pushed lamely to his feet, edged away from 
the inclosure, and made toward the river below. 

13 


THE RETURN 


As he approached there came through the fog- 
laden air the hushed, panting sighs of a waiting 
locomotive standing, lights extinguished, on a 
spur of track. Rapidly, but holding to the deeper 
shadows, he moved towards it. It was headed 
for the front, and a string of cars trailed at its 
rear. Into them the shadowy forms of men were 
stumbling. Somewhere high above rattled the 
metallic chatter of an aeroplane. 

Chancing it, Julienne mixed with the men and 
entered one of the darkened cars, then groped to 
a seat. For a time the confusion continued. 

“Do we not get a light?” some one growled 
from across the way. 

“Nein” replied a figure at his side crossly. 
“Would you have some scouting plane pick us 
out, and the French batteries welcome us as we 
arrive?” 

Judging from the sounds the train was at last 
filled. There came a brief consultation, then an 
electric bell buzzed loudly in a car ahead, as, 
with a slow, lurching pull from the engine, they 
moved off toward the front. 

From the low talk that was going on about 
him Julienne gathered they thought themselves 
on their way to try for some territory that con- 
trolled an important railway center. The train 
crept slowly on. The roadbed was shaky. At 
last they stopped, moved on a short distance, 
14 


THE RETURN 


then again halted. This time the men were or- 
dered out. Julienne climbed down with the rest. 
Slowly they picked their way forward, under 
low-voiced commands, through a meshwork of 
passages that led to the first lines. After an 
eternity of stumbling over drowsy forms, they 
drew aside as the brushing shadows of the men 
relieved passed them. Shortly afterwards they 
entered the foremost trenches. 

The groping fire of the French was becoming 
intermittent and dying away. In a ragged mo- 
ment of silence he heard a man talking softly. 
It seemed a one-sided conversation ; suddenly the 
man laughed. Then the news worked out that 
the French ammunition train had been bombed 
and their supply was running low. 

Day was growing in the east. The first damp 
breath of dawn sighed past. Back in the west 
it was still night. 

A tall, lean officer, with a studious, flat- 
templed brow and a petulant mouth, commenced 
to give instructions. They were to take advan- 
tage of the confusing half light and storm the 
opposite trenches, following at the heels of a 
protective barrage. 

Julienne faced the thought placidly, his vital- 
ity at too low an ebb to register fear. His heart, 
beneath the small soles of the infant’s boots, 
pounded sluggishly to a weary pulse. He had 
15 


THE RETURN 


helped himself to a rifle from a sleeping Boche, 
but intended no resistance, merely a passive ad- 
vance. Idly he surveyed it, pondering how great 
an elevation would be necessary to prevent its 
fire from taking effect. 

What followed was all very orderly and math- 
ematical. The lean officer, with a hard-eyed 
glance along the men, drew his automatic; then 
gave an order. The men crouched at attention. 
Another command and they left the trenches, 
proceeding on schedule in lavish, close-line 
formation. 

As the barrage advanced, the scattered, anemic 
fire of the French grew less, as they sought their 
dugouts. At last it reached them, paused linger- 
ingly, then crept on. Julienne glanced sideways 
at the sweeping horde of which he was a part. 
The one-sided pitiableness of it all reached him: 
his outnumbered countrymen, with scant am- 
munition, waiting for the end. Suddenly a totter 
came into the swift stride of the officer; then he 
lurched and sank to the ground. The men 
paused. A low hectic laugh came from Julienne; 
then with a like gyration he fell, a burning pain 
in his stomach; a hand grenade had exploded 
close to him. 

He rolled to his side and glanced about. The 
barrage had passed on, and the French were 
swarming from their dugouts to finish it in the 
16 


THE RETURN 


open. The wounded officer had pushed himself 
to a sitting posture, the best he could do, and 
with the hand that held the automatic was urging 
them on. 

J ulienne could see, even feel, the indecision of 
the attacking men. They were a section from a 
perfect fighting machine, but, like most mechan- 
ical things, they needed a driver. The punctur- 
ing of their officers’ self-assumed Kaiserlike 
divinity was proving transiently demoralizing. 

Glancing far to the east, Julienne saw a fleet 
of motor trucks, mere dots as yet, trundling rap- 
idly to the front, lurching like drunken tortoises 
under their heavy load. There was the delayed 
ammunition ! 

Suddenly a peculiar thing happened. In the 
face of victory the wounded officer, in a moment 
of calm, ordered a retreat, then flopped face down 
in the dirt as another bullet found him. 

The men needed no second urging. The com- 
mand fitted as a completing mosaic into their 
half-formed mental processes. They whirled and 
raced back to their sheltering trenches. The offi- 
cers on the wings tried to break the panic too 
late. 

A few minutes and the distant, lurching motor 
trucks groaned to a half, and for the time at least 
the railway terminal remained with the French. 

As the day drew on, a form in a German uni- 
17 


THE RETURN 


form commenced working toward the first-line 
trenches of the Allies. Several rifles quickly 
covered it. 

“ Attendez !” commanded a dark-skinned, nerv- 
ous little officer, and the rifles were lowered. 

At last the crawling figure reached the mound 
of loose, yellow earth, worked its way up, then 
rolled laxly down among its countrymen. Ju- 
lienne had returned. 

The nervous little officer moved quickly to his 
side, addressing him in peremptory and poor 
German. 

“The cause of the retreat,” he demanded hur- 
riedly, “quick, out with it!” 

Julienne attempted a weak-armed salute, 
then — 

“May I be assisted to my feet?” he asked in 
excellent French. 

At the sound of their own tongue, two of the 
men lifted him, rather gently for them. With a 
rigid setting of his arms Julienne recalled his 
ebbing strength. Then, with narrowed glottis, 
tongue well retracted, and only its tip moving, 
he faced a sprawled figure a few rods off on the 
plain. And for the second time that day the 
command to retreat came from the officer with 
the flat temples and petulant mouth, though he 
was now dead. 

The men shouted with laughter. 

18 


THE RETURN 


“And you?” questioned the little commander, 
when it had subsided, addressing Julienne; then 
bent close for the reply which came slowly in 
tones that grew rapidly faint. 

“Julienne of the Little Theater,” was all he 
caught. 

The following day, as consciousness returned, 
Julienne found himself in a rather comfortable 
little hospital cot. How much of him was left 
the bandages failed to reveal, though the surgeon 
had implied there would be considerable. 

At a table stood La Fleur. She looked very 
chic, he thought, in her crisply starched nurse’s 
cap. She was trying abstractedly to fit a lifeless 
cork to the neck of an iodine flask. She felt his 
gaze, and, turning, caught it. Then with a swift 
little motion she drew to his side and greeted him 
— much as Joffre did some weeks later, only more 
so, and cried a little while she was doing it. 

While from across the isle a convalescent poilu 
shouted, “Bravo, encore !” and applauded en- 
thusiastically. 



WHAT WOULD YOU EXPECT? 

W ITHOUT a doubt Lois Nadal fully 
intended to marry Sam Owens, had 
not — but, as Kipling never said, that 
is part of this story, only this is the wrong place 
to tell it. 

She had accepted the ring, and they had even 
inspected a few suburban offerings in real estate. 
More to the point, she loved Sam, because, or 
in spite of, his quick, nervous mannerisms and 
intense, ever restless personality. 

Then she met Matthew Paul at a dance. Paul 
wasn’t dancing; men of his kind never do. They 
stand in groups along the walls or in coat rooms, 
smoke heavy cigars, and talk heavy subjects, and 
are known as substantial men. As for Paul, it 
is difficult to describe him exactly — as it is with 
any man who looks one thing and is another. 
“Stately and still like a ship at sea,” comes some- 
what near it, if the facts that he had ruminative, 
oxlike eyes, and slightly round shoulders are 
added. 

Lois’s first glance in his direction must have 
held something of interest, or so it seemed to 
Mrs. Bartlett, the hostess, a tightly-corseted, 
21 


THE RETURN 


short-waisted little woman whose red neck and 
upper chest developed a purple tinge beneath 
concealing layers of powder. Paddling across 
the room she came to anchor at Paul’s side. 

Her gray, direct, yet wary eyes smiled in- 
quisitively up into his muddy, brown ones. 

“I would like you to meet Miss Nadal,” she 
suggested, “she is the little girl in blue.” 

Paul’s heavy feet, with their puffy, silk-clad 
insteps swelling above the rim of his pumps, 
shifted uneasily. He managed a stately obeis- 
ance, in which acquiescence and dignity were 
blended. 

“I should be most pleased, though I do not 
dance,” he added, almost as if he claimed a virtue. 

“She is very vivacious,” assured the hostess. 
Taking the big man’s heavy arm, they crossed the 
floor to where Lois and Sam were seated. 

If one has sat unexpectedly upon a pin or, to 
refine the emotion, experienced a sudden elec- 
trical transfusion, it will not be difficult to grasp 
the tension which for some unknown reason in- 
truded itself upon the meeting. Sam was the 
first to feel it; it spread to Lois, finally including 
Mrs. Bartlett, and then Paul. 

The hostess, disliking any strained situation to 
which she lacked the key, glanced about the room, 
said, “Excuse me just a moment,” and trundled 
off to a secluded corner to watch undisturbed; 

22 


WHAT WOULD YOU EXPECT? 


her big, manlike nose scenting a possible affair. 

Lois came to the rescue with a patter of small 
talk ; Sam helped out, his quick, nervous blue eyes 
twinkling with amusement. Paul folded his 
arms, bent his big head attentively to Lois, and 
made serious replies to her light remarks. At 
length, feeling he too should introduce a topic, 
he pedantically announced that “the weather was 
very hot.” 

“Horribly so,” admitted Sam, then dove 
through a narrow French window that led to a 
long, dark balcony and, flinging himself into a 
chair, laughed until exhausted. 

Three dances brought Lois again to Sam. 

“Well,” he inquired, applying one of his con- 
stant nicknames, “how did you make out with 
‘Beaf Steak John’? Could you open the con- 
versational oyster?” 

“He has some very high ideals,” she defended, 
much to Sam’s surprise. A slight note of irrita- 
tion was in her tones. 

“That ‘silence is golden,’ for instance?” 

Lois mentioned something about conflicting 
personalities. Then they danced, while above on 
the stairs Paul watched them in heavy concen- 
tration. 

Later, on the way to supper, they again passed 
him, plodding about in aloof loneliness; even with 
23 


THE RETURN 

the men he was not over-popular except in a brief 
way. 

Lois’s hand tightened on Sam’s arm. “Ask 
him in with us,” she urged, half compassionately. 
“He seems sort of lost here.” 

“Oh, Mr. John — er — Paul, rather,” called 
Sam, concealing his displeasure, “won’t you join 
us?” 

Paul turned, with alacrity for such a large 
man, and rapidly approached as he accepted the 
invitation, addressing himself exclusively to Lois. 
Sam found another girl, May Mason, and the 
four seated themselves at a secluded table and 
did justice to Mrs. Bartlett’s catering. 

Paul ate in reflective silence, masticating thor- 
oughly. F rom time to time he broke in upon the 
general conversation with some flat announce- 
ment of an informative nature suggestive of vital 
statistics. 

May Mason, who was slightly given to slang, 
finally nudged Owens. 

“Who’s the pill?” she guardedly inquired, in- 
dicating Paul. 

Sam rolled his eyes and tossed off a glass of 
champagne. 

As for Paul he consumed quantities of claret 
and became deeply flushed behind the ears. The 
color finally spread to his face and, with the slight 
24 


WHAT WOULD YOU EXPECT? 


animation it gave him, he became somewhat hand- 
some in a bulky way. 

They were devoting their attention to the ices 
when Sam received a telegram from St. Louis. 
He read it, went white, and bent close to Lois. 
“Lang’s dying,” he said, referring to his brother, 
“I must go at once. If I hurry I can catch the 
one-fifty. Will Paul see you home?” 

Paul, who never appeared to listen but always 
heard, said he would be delighted. 

Excusing himself, Owens left the table. Lois, 
following, met him outside the coat room. “I’m 
so sorry, Sam dear,” she said. 

He took her momentarily in his arms and held 
her youthfully exquisite little body close to him, 
as she, lacing her fingers behind his neck, crushed 
his mouth to hers. 

“Write me often,” he said at last. 

“Every day,” she promised. Then he was gone. 

Settling his brother’s small but involved estate 
took longer than Owens had foreseen. There 
was the widow to assuage and reestablish in more 
modest surroundings, the life insurance to rein- 
vest. In an attempt to divert her he even planned 
careers for the children, plans which they took 
particular pains to controvert during the remain- 
der of their existence. 

As she had promised, Lois wrote every day. 
But as time passed there came a slight change in 
25 


THE RETURN 


the quality of her letters. Nothing that she said 
but perhaps what was omitted, caught the quick, 
temperamental attention of the man. 

At last the day arrived when he could conscien- 
tiously return, and that night he called upon her. 

In her kiss, when she greeted him, was the same 
intangible tracery of reserve he had sensed in 
her letters. Yet she appeared wholly glad to see 
him, and that evening they dined and laughed 
and played together much as usual. It was only 
when he took her in his arms that the slightly 
worried look shadowed her eyes. 

Several times during the ensuing weeks Owens’s 
frequent calls coincided with those of Paul. A 
change had come over the big man. A slight 
mincing had entered his ponderous gait, a new 
assurance was in his manner while he frequently 
assayed an elephantine, clumsy humor. His 
lapel now often bore some microscopically small 
flower, absurdly diminutive on his big flat chest. 
A suggestion of the lover had entered his de- 
meanor. Some atom of tact, however, invariably 
prompted his withdrawal whenever Owens would 
subsequently arrive; though the handclasp with 
Lois on leaving, had it not been imbued with his 
heavy reverence, would have been overlong. 
And each time, as he released her hand, a flood 
of color would race to her faqe while deep in her 
eyes was a suggestion of tears. 

26 


WHAT WOULD YOU EXPECT? 


“Lois, little girl,” said Owens one evening. 
They were sitting together on a big, deep sofa. 
“Can you tell a good lie?” 

She swept him a swift glance, but he had 
robbed his speech of all terseness by his good- 
natured, whimsical smile. 

“Probably yes,” she admitted, “to most people, 
but not to you.” 

Owens drew a slightly crushed cigarette from a 
pliant leather case, worked it to more conven- 
tional lines with his long, sensitive fingers and 
lighting it, relaxed further into the sofa. 

“Is that a promise?” he questioned at length. 

“Yes.” Her tone was vaguely troubled. 

“Then tell me about Paul, all you care to, and 
believe that I will understand.” 

There came a sharp, indrawn half sob from the 
girl, then she had flung herself upon him, her 
soft, round little arms were about his neck, her 
head was buried in his shoulder. 

“Oh, Sam,” she cried, “I didn’t — didn’t want 
you to see.” 

For a time she clung to him sobbing violently, 
as he sat absently smoothing the golden cop- 
per of her hair, a queer, strained, half tender 
smile on his lips. A deep, cutting pain was in 
his eyes, but as her head was buried she didn’t 
see it. 

When she had cried enough to lessen somewhat 
27 


THE RETURN 


the pressure of her grief he placed an arm about 
her and with the other hand forced her face to 
his. 

“You poor little girl,” he said, “why didn’t 
you tell me? Weren’t we friends besides — be- 
sides all the rest ” 

“Oh, I never could have,” she confessed, her 
eyes confidentially wide, “don’t let’s talk about 
it any more; let’s get married to-morrow — now, 
if you want to.” 

“You would do a thing like that — it’s like 
you,” he said, as much to himself as to her; there 
was the steady note of affection in his voice, 
deeper even than that of love. “But I’m not go- 
ing to let you. If you were some little brain 
storm I’d hold you to your promise, if possible. 
But the very fact you’ve offered to go on proves 
you’re the kind that shouldn’t.” 

“What would become of you?” an anxious con- 
cern was in her voice. 

“Your friend as ever,” he promised with an 
assumption of lightness that deceived neither of 
them. 

“No, no,” she protested, “I can’t. It isn’t 
fair — I’ll try to forget him, really I will.” 

“Could you?” The hope in his eyes reached 
her but faintly; his control was excellent. “Re- 
member, the truth to me.” 

“No,” she admitted hopelessly, again her face 
28 


WHAT WOULD YOU EXPECT? 


was buried on his shoulder as he drew her com- 
fortably close. “I love you as much as ever, but 
it seems somehow I — oh, I can’t describe it, 
Sam.” 

Through the night from the South, across 
lower New York, a sea breeze fanned among the 
treetops of Washington Square. 

Slightly to the west an illumined cross, placed 
high on a tower, blotched yellowly into the night. 
Beneath, from the old white Brevoort, an oc- 
casional lilt of music rose upward through long 
open windows. 

Gradually the rise and ebb of the girl’s breath- 
ing settled and lengthened, her small hand, that 
a short time ago had grasped so intensely at his 
shoulder, relaxed, as finally, worn from her 
weeks of struggle and indecision, she slept. The 
minutes linked to hours, and still Owens sat hold- 
ing the small girlish figure close to him. Slowly 
at first there came to him that deep, placid super- 
love, whose source is at the quick of all emotion. 
Some women experience it, and the occasional 
man. The woman in his arms became a little 
child. He only wished to see her happy. 

As he gazed down at the delicate, relaxed lines 
of her mouth, the heavily shadowed eyes lightly 
closed in sleep, he lost all count of time, endeav- 
oring to recapture in a few short hours some sus- 
taining memory. Eventually his thoughts were 
29 


THE RETURN 


broken by the shrill grind of the first of a series 
of wagons from the country, lurching across the 
tracks on Eighth Street, though it was yet dark. 
Rising, he gently lowered Lois, still sleeping, to 
the sofa. She settled comfortably with a short 
sigh of content. Dimming the shaded lamp on 
a far table, he again returned, dropping to one 
knee by her side, and, bending, kissed her with 
gentle pressure on her full little mouth. She 
stirred restlessly, like a half-awakened child, and 
sleepily moved her lips in response, as she placed 
an unconscious arm across his shoulder and then 
again trailed off to a deeper sleep. 

Soon Owens, wrapped in the folds of a light 
loose coat, passed out into the night. 

Lois was awakened late the following morning 
by her aunt, announcing one of Paul’s floral ava- 
lanches. The man’s gifts were typical of himself 
— huge, bulky and profuse. Some hours later he 
arrived, well groomed and personable; radiating 
self-conscious satisfaction. 

That night at dinner Lois several times tried 
to analyze his attraction for her, and each time, 
as she failed, it became more intense. Subtly he 
suggested a figure-head such as old-time mariners 
were wont to place at the bow of their ships ; big, 
soulless, conventional forms, with carved faces 
and lifeless eyes. 

“I judge you have told Owens?” he inquired 
30 


WHAT WOULD YOU EXPECT? 

during the course of the dinner. His voice was 
slightly thick, with a certain anticipatory ex- 
pectation of her reply. 

Studiedly she laid down her fork and glanced 
candidly up at him. “He released me of his own 
accord. I never should have asked him to.” 

Paul frowned and for a time bestowed a 
slightly sulky attention upon the roast. 

Some weeks later they were married by the 
Reverend Partridge, a man of quick intelligence, 
who used one expression to cloak many thoughts. 

For an outsider to attempt the unraveling of 
the domestic accords and variances of a newly 
married couple is about as possible as for a near- 
sighted man to follow the trail of a sand flea on 
a hard beach. For a time, at least, there came no 
short circuit in the Pauls’ domestic current. He 
was a man of casts and molds. The wifely, hand- 
poured cup of coffee, the good-by kiss, the flower 
in the buttonhole were to him all sufficient proof 
of devotion. Some stuffy tenets of a school-boy 
code still clung to him, forcing him to believe that 
all women were shy and elusive. 

And Lois, sensing his rigid mental grooves, 
poured herself into them to avoid conflict. Time 
and again she checked the little flushes of affec- 
tion that a more flexible man would have en- 
couraged, offering him instead a placid wifely 
31 


THE RETURN 


esteem, which to his tightly-corseted point of 
view was all sufficient. 

If, as time went on, the waves of matrimony 
caused her figure-head of a mate to resound some- 
what hollowly, Lois gave no sign of it ; even when 
she came to realize that his semblance of sub- 
stantialness was the result of dullness. And 
when, as the months passed, she discovered, 
through the frequent reminders of the trades- 
people, that his legal practice was a mere shell, 
that he never held a client beyond the initial dis- 
aster to which he invariably led them, it only 
roused her loyalty to a degree more intense. 

For a time she silenced the clamor of his cred- 
itors with the remains of a legacy from her father. 
When this was exhausted she commenced within 
the outwardly attractive walls of her home one 
of those campaigns of economy not infrequent 
with women of her class who have pluck. Their 
one servant she kept agreeable enough to answer 
the door safely by doing most of the girl’s work. 
She made her own clothes, and after a time looked 
well in them; while luncheon became a semi-fast 
that the dinner table might be more attractive 
for Paul’s home-coming. 

As for Paul, his self-esteem hitched to a star, 
he rode on the crest of her sacrifices and consid- 
ered himself a success. 

Gradually the situation became worse. Paul’s 
32 


WHAT WOULD YOU EXPECT? 


“once to every man” line of business, with the 
resultant falling off in prestige, brought them to 
a less expensive suburb. “Because the air is so 
much purer,” Lois explained to her friends. And 
they pretended to believe her, which after all was 
the least they could do. 

Time and again poorly schooled little shysters, 
whose only claim to a degree was a certain period 
spent, mostly as errand boy, in so-and-so’s office, 
plus a hasty perusal of the Code, ruined Paul’s 
leisurely Blackstonian lines of argument with an 
acid touch of common sense. At last came the 
average man’s crowning achievement along the 
lines of defeat ; Paul could not pay his office rent. 

“I am not understood,” he complained to Lois 
at dinner, “nor appreciated. My competitors 
are a race of whippersnappers, who strangle me 
with their little technicalities.” 

“I’m so sorry, dear,” Lois soothed then from 
force of habit. “How much is it?” 

He told her, and the following day she went to 
the city carrying a little packet which contained 
the final heirlooms of her family. Arrived at 
Forty-second Street, she nervously sought the 
sanctuary of one of the numerous “friends in 
need” that infest Sixth Avenue. There the pro- 
prietor informed her that gold weighed twenty- 
four grains to the pennyweight, but sentiment 
33 


THE RETURN 


nothing, gave her a fair weight, and offered her 
the market price. 

The following day, Paul, with considerable 
ostentation, paid his office rent. 

Lois made one other visit while in town. This 
took her to an old-fashioned building, wedged in 
between two modern Goliaths of steel and stone, 
where she found Owens plowing through an 
apparently untidy mass of papers to which he 
appeared to hold some hidden clue. 

He seemed very glad to see her and seated her 
comfortably in his big, informal client’s chair 
with its nicely placed arms. Without appearing 
to notice, he quickly sensed her slightly worn 
attire. Then, because it was like him: “You’re 
looking well, Lois,” he said, “that country air 
certainly has given you some color.” 

“Thanks,” she replied half-heartedly. For a 
moment she toyed nervously with the mesh of her 
purse, finally turning squarely to him. 

“Sam, I want your advice on something that 
has been troubling me for some time. In a way, 
I have no right to come to you. Yet whom else 
could I ask?” 

Owens threw her a quick glance and caught 
the inward turmoil, the disinclination for her er- 
rand, that shaded her manner. He said nothing, 
but waited with sympathetic attentiveness for 
her to continue. 


34 


WHAT WOULD YOU EXPECT? 

“It’s about Paul,” she broached at length with 
a final snapping twist to the mesh of her purse; 
“he does not appear to succeed as he should.” 

A lazy glint of mirth was creeping into Owens’s 
eyes. He felt it, and stared out of the window 
until it was gone. 

“Every day,” went on Lois, “I see apparently 
lesser men pass him, some of them cheap little 
men, I should say, not nearly so prepossessing 
as he. So I thought perhaps as you are so ex- 
perienced in those things you might have decided, 
having heard him in court, just what was keeping 
him back, and that you would tell me what it is. 
And perhaps I could help him — that is, without 
his knowing it.” 

There was something pathetic in Lois’s con- 
trol, in the plain matter-of-fact way in which she 
sought his advice in a final effort to keep this 
figure-head of a man above water. All the pleas- 
ure Owens might have felt at the other’s lack of 
success became quickly merged in her apparent 
disappointment. 

The words: “He’s a plain damn fool,” which 
had at first suggested themselves, gradually mel- 
lowed in his mind, until when he spoke it was with 
a rare tact. 

“You mean that while he’s making a more or 
less comfortable living you think he deserves a 
larger success,” said Sam reflectively, purposely 
35 


THE RETURN 


misunderstanding her. Then, without giving her 
opportunity to reply: “The point is this: Paul 
isn’t really a lawyer — that is, in his point of view, 
He’s more of an after-dinner speaker, a pol- 
itician, a generalizer. He’s the kind of a man a 
firm employs to present their cases in court after 
they have worked out the fine points. He’s im- 
pressive and speaks slowly enough, so that the 
judges and jury can get him. But when he tries 
to work out a case on his own hook he is slightly 
— er — egotistical and thinks his own opinion on a 
subject is higher than the law.” 

Lois nodded reflectively. There was some- 
thing slightly acquiescent in the motion, a subtle 
indication that she grasped all too clearly what 
was meant. 

“Of course,” Owens went on, “that’s a difficult 
fault to overcome. If a man’s willing to take a 
little coaching a lot can be done with him, but 
when he knows it all — why, a sort of auto-sug- 
gestion is the only remaining course.” 

After a brief silence, “He would never follow 
any one else’s opinion,” admitted Lois wearily. 
“That is, consciously,” she added. 

“Does he ever discuss his cases with you?” 
questioned Owens. 

“Yes, frequently.” 

“In advance of the trial?” 

“Yes.” 


36 


WHAT WOULD YOU EXPECT? 


Owens slipped off his thin glasses. Were it 
not for the many lines, his face seemed very 
young. There was something almost school-boy- 
ishly roguish in it just then. 

“Listen,” he said, leaning forward in quick 
nervous intentness. “Last night at the club he 
got the Shaws-Burnam trade mark case. It’s a 
Western concern. I heard him discuss his line 
of probable procedure with the vice-president of 
the firm. Unfortunately, he took the legal horse 
by the tail. He’s going to claim intent to de- 
fraud, which will be almost impossible to prove; 
while if he went after them for negligence he’d 
not only get away with it, but probably the same 
amount of damages.” 

Lois nodded in vague comprehension. 

“See here,” said Owens, still talking rapidly. 
The joy of the game was in his nerves, his quick 
blue eyes blinked with suppressed excitement. 
“I’m going to run over the fine points of this case 
with you. I got the whole thing from behind a 
paper in a near-by armchair, while they discussed 
it. When you get home lead him to talk about it, 
then introduce what I’m telling you as best you 
can remember.” 

With a few swift strokes he sketched the case 
for her, the two angles from which to regard it, 
and the probable results. She listened intently, 
then asked several questions. 

37 


THE RETURN 


“Fine,” he exclaimed, perceiving their per- 
tinency. “You’ve got the idea. Come in from 
time to time. Perhaps we can put Paul into his 
winning stride.” 

With womanly intuition Lois sensed that the 
lightness of his manner was but the result of good 
sportsmanship; that beneath the surface lay the 
old, yet deep love. 

“I’m not going to try to thank you, Sam. 
There wouldn’t be any use,” she said, holding out 
her little hand in its shabby glove. 

“You couldn’t if you wanted to, for there’s no 
reason. Only if it works — ” For a moment he 
hesitated. Then: “Come again.” 

That evening at dinner she led Paul to discuss 
the case with her and later continued the subject 
in the library. With minute cleverness she, by 
degrees, inoculated him with Owens’s line of rea- 
soning; then, by an adroit series of apparently 
pointless questions, induced him to evolve it as 
his own. And, because he thought it the prod- 
uct of his brain, Paul earnestly approved and 
carried it with him into court. Some weeks later 
he had won the case and earned a substantial fee. 

Several times Lois repeated this line of pro- 
cedure until with their bank account rehabilitated 
they forsook the “purer air” of the more remote 
suburb and returned to their old home. And 
38 


.WHAT WOULD YOU EXPECT? 

again the hum of the motor car was heard in the 
garage. 

So the big black fly of a man stumbled into the 
sugar bowl of success, whose lid had been raised 
for him through the efforts of his wife, and, fly- 
like, he soon became drunk on the contents. 

To Owens, as time went on, Lois proved a con- 
tinual source of wonderment. Gradually the law 
developed a subtle fascination for her which grew 
as she came to understand it. As in the past she 
had untangled skeins of worsted for the benefit 
of her crocheting needle, she now unraveled legal 
problems for the benefit of her brain; and found 
it vastly the more fascinating occupation of the 
two. 

Constant, though secret, reading developed 
this aptitude. At first she had always approached 
Owens with Paul’s cases in the rough. Now she 
developed the habit of bringing with them her 
own conclusions; which he seldom found neces- 
sary to devise. For she had caught the deep, un- 
derlying principles on which all laws are built, 
and polished them with a strictly modern com- 
mon sense. 

“Do you know,” informed Owens one day, 
“with a little supplementary reading and court 
experience you could practice successfully.” 

She flushed with pleasure at his praise. “It’s 
such fun,” she confided, which after all is the 
39 


THE RETURN 

spirit in which much really successful work is 
evolved. 

As for Paul he preened and strutted and eu- 
logized upon having at last forced a recognition 
of his abilities from the big, thoughtless world — 
becoming suffused with a sort of mental intox- 
ication, which is dangerous, to say the least. And 
Owens worked steadily for his success, subtly 
directing clients in his direction and building the 
cases for him when they arrived. He asked little 
in return but the pleasure of seeing Lois. There 
was nothing clandestine to their meetings — sim- 
ply an open, clean friendliness. And if occasion- 
ally she lingered slightly beyond the time con- 
sumed by legal technicalities and Owens encour- 
aged her in it, they were after all but human. 

Paul’s second-hand career grew and expanded 
until at length they were affluent in a limited way. 

Some men pass through the major portion of 
their lives practically unnoticed by the opposite 
sex. So it had been with Paul. But his growing 
success gave him a financial persuasiveness he 
had heretofore lacked. The implication that he 
could hold such a woman as Lois for a wife 
proved a form of advertising which drew the at- 
tention of certain ever restless females. And 
soon the masculine catacomb became a palace of 
amours. 

Certain fiction to the contrary, many of these 
40 


WHAT WOULD YOU EXPECT? 

masculine Cinderellas are not the single-gauged, 
whole-souled monogamists their isolation would 
imply. It meant more to Paul that he was be- 
coming a “ladies’ man” than that he was no 
longer financially a failure. With the ghosts of 
his past affectations writhing in their graves, he 
learned to dance, in a low-pirouetting, dignified 
way. He caught the threadbare trick of looking 
things he dare not say, or couldn’t think of, and 
shortly perceived that the subtle flattery of a 
good listener is always in demand. Eventually 
he developed a sickening habit of practicing his 
newly acquired wiles upon Lois, which, when per- 
fected, he would apply to less conventional re- 
cipients. 

As it is ever the tendency of the novice to be 
lured by the professional, it took Paul but a short 
time to exhaust the more limited possibilities of 
his own set. Soon he commenced to cultivate a 
class of women who are charitably known as op- 
portunists, to put it mildly. It was among these 
that Paul discovered his equal in a girl who had 
lost all the decencies which he had never pos- 
sessed. She was called the Boomerang, and why 
he never discovered; though probably he would 
not have cared if he had. To shorten an unpleas- 
ant episode it is enough to say that an imme- 
diate and galvanic attraction developed, ce- 
mented by their mutual perversities, which bred 
41 


THE RETURN 


a species of loyalty deserving of a better source. 

With that peculiar desire for publicity, even 
of an unwholesome nature, so often a character- 
istic of the unsought male, Paul took no particu- 
lar pains to conceal his new potentialities from 
Lois. At last even her unwilling suspicions were 
aroused. Finally she mentioned her misgivings 
with a suggestion of playfulness, as though dis- 
believing them yet wishing to have him reassure 
her. 

Paul, since his advent among those who had 
let go their hold on the conventions, had imbibed 
freely of their current platitudes. He now re- 
leased a few gems from his verbal collection. 

“My dear,” he replied, his manner of grandil- 
oquence ever growing, “men of the world, even 
big men, have at times a few trivial weaknesses. 
It is not to be expected a mere woman would 
grasp the many temptations that are strewn 
about a man.” 

Lois carried the subject no further. His ab- 
sence of denial was, to her, an admission in full. 

“Sam,” said she, the following day, “who and 
what is the ‘Boomerang’?” 

Owens jerked his head and his attention from 
a mass of papers, as he darted a quick, searching 
glance in her direction. 

Her manner was very compressed, wery mat- 
ter-of-fact. 


42 


WHAT WOULD YOU EXPECT? 


“She’s the type,” he said slowly, “that a man 
embraces in private and usually ignores in 
public.” 

“I thought as much,” admitted Lois. 

“When did you find this out?” he inquired. 

“Yesterday, that is, for a certainty.” 

“Well ?” 

“Well,” she echoed, with her most agreeable 
smile, “I’m going to practice law, and I want 
you to find me an assistant — some one you think 
is able to handle court work.” 

“I see,” said Sam. Something of her plan had 
already reached his quick mind. Then: “How 
about young Dwyer? Heaps of ability in the 
rough. Lacks concentration and cases. As he 
is engaged and is crazy about the girl, he proba- 
bly won’t trouble you with making love. I’ll call 
him up and have him come down if you say so.” 

Young Dwyer, who had reached that phase of 
his legal career in which he seriously contem- 
plated investing in a motorcycle, the better to fol- 
low ambulances on the chance of an occasional 
damage case, readily responded. He was a tall, 
clean, raw-boned chap with a loose, engaging 
manner, rather given to talk. Sam introduced 
them, stayed a few minutes to bridge the formal- 
ities, then wandered out to purchase a cigar. 
When he returned the deal had been closed and 
Dwyer was gone. 


43 


THE RETURN 


“If you get stuck, come in,” invited Owens 
with studied carelessness. 

“Sam,” said Lois very intensely, “this is some- 
thing I want to do all by myself.” On either 
side of her small mouth was a sharp, white little 
line. 

“Paul’s more of a lawyer than he was,” warned 
Owens. “He’s been to school without knowing 
it and approaches a case in a very different man- 
ner. Besides he has more or less of a reputa- 
tion now. That will carry him for quite a 
distance.” 

“I know,” she acceded. “It won’t be easy.” 

“Matthew,” said Lois that evening, “do you 
intend living at the club or will it be necessary 
for me to leave?” There was a coolness in her 
tones that a more subtle man would have ap- 
praised correctly. 

Paul removed a panatela of unusual length 
from his clinging lips. “You can’t be serious,” 
he hazarded. 

“Perfectly so,” assured Lois. “Your thinking 
that I am not is almost an insult.” 

“You intend to divorce me?” 

“Not just yet,” she reflected. “A separation 
will answer for the time. You know I don’t par- 
ticularly approve of divorces; that is, hurried 
ones.” 

“This is an outrage,” stormed the man. “You 
44 


WHAT WOULD YOU EXPECT? 

say nothing, then suddenly decide to desert me 
without even asking me to reform.” 

“To reform,” smiled Lois very seriously, “it is 
necessary at some time in your life to have been 
different from what you are now. There must 
be something to reform to.” 

The scene was not at all as Paul would have 
wished it. There were no hysterics, weeping or 
denunciations. It was flat, cold, tense, and 
slightly beyond his grasp, giving him no oppor- 
tunity to exploit her or himself or to play the 
bear. In his own mind he was a dramatic 
“heavy,” and she was holding him to a light and 
minor part. 

Then slowly at the back of his flaccid brain, its 
mechanics somewhat similar to that of a rogue 
elephant, a phosphorescent thought commenced 
to glow. There was bound to be notoriety of a 
kind, and he would be featured as a Butterfly 
Man, a philanderer, a heartbreaker. The thought 
pleased him in an anticipatory way, for, to let 
Dundreary have the honors, “every fellow thinks 
the other fellow is a devil of a fellow, but he isn’t.” 

“I will go to the club,” he at length stiffly 
conceded. 

“Thanks,” said Lois. “How soon?” 

“Immediately.” And he flung upstairs. 

A few minutes later the big front door crashed 
shut. 


45 


THE RETURN 


During the discouraging interim that followed, 
Lois gradually came to discover that even to the 
strong hand of ability the nut of reputation is 
hard cracking. Young Dwyer did well enough 
in the grooves she outlined for him, occasionally 
even contributing a scintillation of his own to the 
structure of her cases. But they were two un- 
knowns in a city rank with talent and ability. 
Eventually she came to sense that feeling of bit- 
terness not infrequently experienced by those 
with “goods to deliver,” who find all doors closed 
or at best suspiciously ajar. 

To see the cases she so vitally needed drift past 
her into the office of the man whose career she 
had helped to build made her senses flame, until 
a cooling sense of the humor of it all came to the 
rescue. As for young Dwyer, he smoked himself 
to the verge of a nervous affection and threatened 
to “pound to a jelly” the next man that “passed 
them up.” 

It was the Ackermann versus Melvinne litiga- 
tion that brought things to a climax. It covered 
the leasing of a patent and the conflicting per- 
centages claimed by the lessee and those who had 
loaned the inventor enough to complete his ex- 
periments. 

Owens had casually tipped Lois off as to the 
approaching culmination of the affair. 

“You might land it,” he advised. “The com- 
46 


WHAT WOULD YOU EXPECT? 


plainants need, but can’t quite afford, a high- 
priced lawyer.” Paul is retained by the defend- 
ants. 

Then it was that Lois, still superficially girlish 
but at heart a hardened business woman, did a 
characteristic thing: smoothing her hair until 
but a vestige of its natural waviness remained, 
simplifying her attire until it verged upon the 
masculine and encasing her small feet in the 
heaviest of sensible shoes, she called upon Acker- 
mann. Once arrived at the inner shrine of the 
somewhat irritable old man’s private office she 
openly, unethically, and shamelessly solicited the 
case. From the moment she entered she sensed 
the atmosphere as frigid. Old Ackermann had 
little faith in the ability of women outside of the 
home; nor was he inclined to eulogize them too 
highly in it. His knowledge of the sex began 
and ended with two dilettante and expensive 
daughters and an invalid wife. He had heard 
that women differed even as men, but didn’t 
believe it. 

His glance kindled with reluctant interest as 
he surveyed her. 

“A woman lawyer,” he sniffed more to himself 
than to her. “Huh — a woman lawyer.” Then: 
“What business has your firm handled that would 
justify my giving them such a delicate case?” 

Swift intuition told Lois that a supplicating 
47 


THE RETURN 


attitude was not the correct method of approach. 
Evidently wheedling was what Ackermann ex- 
pected from woman, and it irritated him accord- 
ingly. 

“Our period of actual practice has not been 
long,” she informed him. “My time, for several 
years, has been devoted to working out the more 
difficult technicalities for men engaged in court 
work. I built the arguments and collected the 
evidence for the following.” Reaching to a 
leather portfolio, she handed him a list of Paul’s 
best and most successful cases. 

After he had read of and recognized several 
of the firms, he glanced back at Lois, prejudice 
and interest struggling for supremacy. 

“It seems expedient to mention,” she went on, 
“that as a new firm we wish to base our reputa- 
tion on cases that require skill in handling. Take 
the position of your firm for a present instance.” 
Then she swept off into the intricacies of the af- 
fair in a manner that caused old Ackermann to 
straighten in his chair. It was gallery play, pure 
and simple, yet it had its effect. “You see,” she 
concluded, “your chances are rather poor, at best, 
the facts are against you, were it not — ” She 
paused. 

“Yes,” urged Ackermann, his green, greedy 
little eyes upon her. 

“ — Were it not for an irrefutable fact we have 
48 


WHAT WOULD YOU EXPECT? 


discovered which will place the affair in your 
hands.” 

“Which is — ?” Ackermann was now suavely 
courteous. 

“Which is a fact we are reserving until we have 
the honor of considering you among our clients. 
Frankly, Mr. Ackermann, we need the prestige 
of your firm; can’t we come to some under- 
standing?” 

“If you have evidence which will win for us 
and can so convince me, the business is yours,” 
Ackermann’s tone was final. 

“Then,” said Lois with a smile, “we are pleased 
to inform you that the Melvinne firm delayed 
three months beyond the time stipulated for the 
payment on their rights to Roylls, the inventor. 
And he, partly through pique and partly from 
carelessness, has not as yet cashed their check. 
With slight pressure he could, I have small 
doubt, be prevailed upon to return it uncashed, 
in which case no contract would exist.” 

Old Ackermann leaned forward in his chair 
and rubbed his skinny hands glidingly together. 

“How did you get this?” he demanded acutely. 

“The source of my information is confidential 
but accurate. Probably I can produce the check 
within a few hours.” 

In fact, it was one of those business flukes that 
happen but once in a lifetime; the inventor’s 
49 


THE RETURN 

daughter was the girl to whom young Dwyer 
was engaged. 

Yet it was enough. Other cases shortly fol- 
lowed until the foot of adversity had at length 
kicked them into the green pastures of plenty. 

To trace in detail the proceedings of the fol- 
lowing months would necessitate a dry chart of 
legal battles that would prove as flat to an out- 
sider as they were vivid to Lois. Her initial 
chance having come through raw luck, plus a 
certain amount of preparatory hustling, she 
proceeded to cinch it with ability. How, gradu- 
ally, she undermined Paul’s practice, with his 
own egotism as a contributing factor (campaign- 
ing for cases in which she could work against 
him) is material worthy of a space writer. 

As Owens had predicted, Paul was more of 
a lawyer than the crude cub of a man she had 
married. The aurora of past successes still clung 
to him. But beneath it all lay the fundamental 
weaknesses which she for a time had helped him 
to smother, but which had never quite died. His 
almost Teutonic obsession in his own divine right 
to success, his crude, careless discounting of the 
capacities of the other side blossomed anew. 
Occasionally Paul won from her, but these in- 
stances became fewer and further between. 

Lois gracefully clung to the background, con- 
fining herself to the building of the cases, while 
50 


WHAT WOULD YOU EXPECT? 


Dwyer handled the court work. Yet it was im- 
possible to prevent Paul ultimately discovering 
the owner of the hand that was crumbling his 
career. 

Without a doubt he constructed some chain 
of mitigating excuses that explained, to himself 
at least, his growing failures ; he would no longer 
have been Matthew Paul had he not done so. 
But such self-extenuations are not legal tender 
in sustaining an expensive office staff, nor did 
they feather the unconventional nest he had 
acquired for the Boomerang. What made it 
still more nerve racking was that the situation 
lacked all the exotic excitement of a big, crash- 
ing failure, the electrical breathlessness of a swift 
plunge. Instead it was a slow, crumbling decay, 
allowing ample time for a pro- and retrospect ; in- 
terspaced with vacuums of depression. 

It would make “nice reading” to be able to 
add about here how Owens continually and with 
white-faced desperation pursued Lois with fervid 
protestations of love. But having in a measure 
deadened his emotions on that long ago evening 
when he had left her asleep in her little apart- 
ment near Eighth Street, he was careful about 
again rekindling them, so did nothing of the 
kind. And, if at times he craved things more 
intimate and personal than are contemplated by 
the austere when asking for their daily bread, 
51 


' THE RETURN 


he kept the fact to himself and toyed with his 
carefully selected and interesting practice. 

So through the months Lois, with all the 
tenacity of even a good woman, when once 
aroused, stalked Paul through the legal jungle 
of a big city. 

Among the every-day practices of the courts, 
in the rarer air of equity, and in the intimate 
sanctum of secretive referees — on each field her 
intellect met and eventually conquered his. At 
last in desperation he sought the handling of 
estates; of which his manner of pompous in- 
tegrity brought him a few small ones. And as 
he had some knack of investment he for a time 
crawled on, on the most meager of financial 
pickings. 

From this niche Lois would have found it dif- 
ficult to dislodge him, had not fate, in the form 
of a short story Paul chanced to read, played 
into her hands. It was one of those rigid little 
tales of business low life, that simultaneously 
scorn dishonesty and at the same time suggest 
the ways and means of transgression to minds 
already slightly inclined. A sort of Jack Sprat 
and wife little yarn that satisfied the ruling 
spirits of conventionality and poetic justice 
from the same five-thousand- word platter. 

It was not the romantic codicil that won Paul’s 
attention so much as the methods therein sug- 
52 


WHAT WOULD YOU EXPECT? 


gested for financial juggling. He read, ap- 
proved, then tried them out, and found they 
worked splendidly until one of the legatees de- 
manded an accounting. This demand came at a 
time when Paul’s administration — due to a drop 
in the market — showed a deficit that he had 
neither the cash to cover nor the ingenuity to 
explain. It was a matter of some ten thousand 
dollars or so, but in his straitened financial con- 
dition it represented a colossally unattainable 
amount. 

The defrauded legatee’s first impulse was to 
let Paul take the immediate consequences. 
Cooler second thought convinced him that in 
the long run such hasty vengeance would prove 
expensive, and as he needed the money he gave 
him three months to cover the amount. Doubt- 
less the good man felt that one so untrammeled 
with business scruples could within that time 
rob some one else and thus pay him back. 

In fact, he intimated something of the kind 
to Paul, who received the suggestion tranquilly, 
only deploring the dearth of present oppor- 
tunities. 

The three months were nearly gone when 
Paul confessed his predicament to the Boomer- 
ang, accentuating the short time left in which 
to extricate himself. She proved profuse, with 
a certain maudlin sympathy, but lacked all sug- 
53 


THE RETURN 


gestions of a practical nature. If protestations 
of undying love and over-long kisses could have 
been utilized he would soon have been immune 
from the consequences of his acts. 

“Paul’s put both feet in it this time,” an- 
nounced Owens one evening shortly after. He 
was calling on Lois in her little apartment in 
Brooklyn. 

She glanced inquiringly up from her knitting. 
Somehow at the end of each legal day she con- 
trived to shed all the casual outer semblance of 
the business woman and for the time would re- 
vert to the well-remembered, essentially fem- 
inine Lois of old. 

“Yes,” continued Sam, his quick glance not- 
ing the curling glint of her hair in the lamp 
light, the soft clinginess of her dress, the tender, 
busy, maternal little hands, “he helped himself 
from the Beryl estate and has three days more 
to make good in or — ” he paused significantly. 

Lois dropped and regained a stitch, counted 
the row on her needle abstractedly several times. 
Then: “Who told you?” 

“Penning, a little shyster who has been try- 
ing to get me into a partnership agreement 
with him.” For an interval Sam rattled on about 
Penning, covertly watching Lois. Her heavy 
lashes were shadowing her eyes, as she surveyed 
the knitting with unnecessary concentration. 

54 


WHAT WOULD YOU EXPECT? 


Apparently, while seeming to listen, she heard 
little of what he was saying. 

Later, when Owens had gone, she sat for a 
time in idle preoccupation, then, reaching for the 
telephone by her desk, gave Paul’s number. 

When the call came Paul was reclining on a 
sofa, his big square head in the Boomerang’s 
lap, while the lady amused herself by twirling 
his oily hair into squills, Topsy fashion. 

“It’s Lois,” he said with his hand over the 
transmitter. “She wants to see me.” 

His companion’s face flamed a mottled, angry 
red. 

“Wants her little boy back perhaps,” she sug- 
gested sneeringly. “You’d better hurry.” 

Lois had given him the address and asked 
how soon he could come. 

“Bight away,” he replied and dropped the 
receiver back in place. “I’d better go,” he half 
apologized. “She sounded as if it were rather 
urgent.” 

“Suppose I ask you not to?” the Boomerang 
had contrived a set of devotional high hurdles 
and frequently delighted in putting him over 
them. 

Paul hesitated shiftingly. They had neigh- 
bors, the walls were thin, and the woman’s 
scenes were truly climacteric. 

“It may be about the Beryl estate,” he tem- 
55 


THE RETURN 


porized, half -pleadingly. “She seems to get 
everything that concerns me of late.” 

It ended in his going, and half an hour later 
found him being ushered into Lois’s little apart- 
ment. It was with considerable curiosity that 
he glanced about the home that this woman 
whom he had been pleased to consider in the 
light of a dependent, had obtained for herself. 
The papering, the furnishings, everything about 
the room in which he sat was subtly redolent of 
her personality; and when finally she appeared 
the effect was complete. 

“Good evening, Matthew,” she said, the more 
composed of the two, her voice unstudiedly 
normal. 

An anticipatory question commenced to stir 
in the man’s mind. Perhaps, as the Boomerang 
had hazarded, she was in fact about to attempt 
reestablishing some sort of an intimacy. His 
vanity, a hardy perennial, still flourished upon 
the grave of a ruined career and blossomed anew 
in the face of a prison term. 

Lois’s subsequent remark quickly dispelled 
any such half-formed illusions. 

“How much will it require to clear you with 
the Beryl estate?” she inquired with a ring of 
poorly concealed contempt. Vaguely she noted 
how unchanged he appeared, but for his added 
weight. He still sat awkwardly in his chair, 
56 


WHAT WOULD YOU EXPECT? 

while his big aimless hands had retained and 
accentuated their habit of wandering. 

He slowly raised his cloudy eyes to hers. They 
were suddenly very dull and haggard. 

“Between nine and ten thousand,” he men- 
tioned flatly. “Why? Has Beryl handed the 
matter over to you? He said he would give me 
until the thirtieth; that’s three days more.” For 
once the swelling pompousness was ebbing, his 
voice was dry and hopeless. 

“No, I haven’t see Beryl,” she at last denied. 
“Have you any way of meeting your — er — your 
obligation on Saturday?” 

“Nothing tangible than I can as yet foresee,” 
commenced Paul in his old-time vein. Then dis- 
carding it, “I’m broke,” he added. There was 
the suggestion of a quiver to his thick, red under 
lip, which he finally conquered. 

In dropping back to naturalness he played bet- 
ter than he knew. Had he held to his self-im- 
portant, artificial role she could have cheerfully 
exacted the last minim, but from Paul — the big, 
soft, clumsy Paul she had first known — somehow 
it was different. With that quality, peculiar to 
many women, that initial loyalty to the first man 
they have intimately known, Lois reached for her 
check book. 

The light of relief which flooded his face when 
he saw the little red book and half interpreted 
57 


THE RETURN 


her intent was almost comical. It seemed to have 
an osteopathic effect that straightened his shoul- 
ders and caused him to draw in his stomach, and 
sit more erectly in his chair. Suddenly realizing 
that good taste should have precluded him from 
so promptly divining her intent he again 
slumped, so that when Lois glanced in his direc- 
tion it was the beaten man that still sat before 
her. 

Carefully dipping a pen she drew a check and 
passed it over to him. He took it with eager 
reluctance, as, curiosity struggling with his re- 
straint, he glanced at the amount and started: 

“Yes, fifteen thousand,” said Lois, who had 
caught the little by-play. “Ten for the Beryl 
estate — the balance for — ” she hesitated, then, 
“Why don’t you try sheep raising in Australia, 
Matthew? They say one can rapidly expand 
one’s capital by going carefully at first.” 

Paul accurately folded the check, running his 
thumb and forefinger along the seam. The glide 
of the paper appeared to rejuvenate him; his dig- 
nity returned. Suddenly the homelike appeal 
of the little flat reached him ; Lois’s cool refresh- 
ing slimness drew him as it had in the past. 

“I regret the pain I must have caused you,” 
he said with his former stateliness. “If you 
would care to overlook my transgressions and 
start anew — ” he paused interrogatively. 

58 


WHAT WOULD YOU EXPECT? 

“Thanks,” said Lois with a white, compressed 
smile. “But you and the Boomerang make such 
a perfect team I would feel almost sacrilegious in 
breaking it up. Good-night,” she added point- 
edly. 

Paul rose and strode stiffly from the room. He 
walked with a sort of offended dignity, his heavy 
bulging calves stretching the legs of his tight 
black pants. 

For a time Lois cried with tired nervousness; 
then, with a relieved little smile, rose and went to 
bed. 

Several evenings later Owens called upon her. 
Old Sarah, a servant, who had outlived all but 
a sentimental usefulness, admitted him. He 
passed unannounced into the library. At a desk 
sat Lois, her forehead pressed upon her palm, 
toying with a scrap of paper in her other hand. 
Owens passed silently to her side. She half 
turned with a curt, self-depreciatory motion and 
handed him the check she had drawn to Paul. 
Owens’s eyes narrowed as he read it. 

“He raised it,” said Lois wearily, “changed my 
first one to a two.” There was a catch in her 
voice as she added, “The bank called me up about 
it before they cashed it.” 

“And you?” Owens questioned. 

“Oh, I told them it was all right, to go ahead 
and honor it.” 


59 


THE RETURN 


Sam stood silently gazing down at her. On 
his young, old face was a wistful compassion, for 
once a tentative helplessness in his attitude. 

At length. “I’m so sorry,” he said gently, “it 
must make it doubly hard when you care so 
much.” 

“Care?” her small, blue, white teeth snapped 
short the word. “I’ve always hated him, ever 
since the first few months. That’s why I gave 
him every chance.” 

On a large ship in a secluded angle of the deck 
sat Paul and the Boomerang lauguorously close, 
and, justice to the contrary, they appeared very 
contented. 

While Sam and Lois back in the little Brook- 
lyn apartment were now — well, what would you 
expect ! 


THE UNCONSCIOUS MUTT 

O N a sultry night in late June Jimmie 
Williams approached the all-front and 
no-back portals of a moving picture 
house. Languidly he poked along, drawing his 
oversized feet wearily after him as though the 
day’s toil had been too much. His rather loose 
face was reinforced by the glowing stub of a 
cheap, ill-smelling cigarette. Eventually he 
paused beneath a ghastly overhead light that 
caused him to appear even more haggard and 
delicate than he really was. 

For a time he stood listlessly, his lean shoulders 
hunched forward in his cheaply cut coat, as he 
apathetically surveyed a lurid and poorly done 
poster of a very blonde young woman struggling 
in the embrace of a very brunette man. The 
eyes of the lady in question were distended in 
what was supposed to represent fear, though in- 
sanity was the effect really attained. On the 
face of the brunette man were unmentionable 
emotions. In those days the “pictures” were 
young. 

Apparently assured of an evening’s entertain- 
ment the languid youth turned, crossed to the 
61 


THE RETURN 


white, boxlike ticket window, and presented a 
worn nickel in a grimy, ragged-nailed hand. At 
this the young woman within the box commenced 
a series of movements strongly suggestive of the 
mechanical checker player at the now defunct 
Eden Musee. Without moving her elbows she 
flipped the nickel into its groove in the open 
drawer, tore off a yellow ticket with a twist of 
the wrist, and poked it through a glass slide. 
Then, not raising her eyes from an absorbing 
novel, she patted her pompadour, adjusted a 
rhinestone comb, and again lapsed to rigidity. 

The impersonality of the transaction left Jim- 
mie feeling somehow defrauded. He lingered 
on, his eyes hopefully upon the young woman 
within the box, who seemed completely immersed 
in literature. 

“Good show?” he ventured at length, ingra- 
tiatingly. 

“Uh-huh,” this a trifle wearily and without 
looking up. 

“They’re runnin’ ‘The Drippin’ Dagger’ at the 
Arcade,” he pressed. “Seen it?” His trend was 
obvious. 

Slowly the young woman lifted her gaze. 
Somewhere within her rouged cheek she had cap- 
tured a morsel of gum which she champed nerv- 
ously — a bad sign for him had he but known it. 

“No,” she said. “I ain’t and I don’t want to. 

62 


THE UNCONSCIOUS MUTT 


And I get through here at ten-thirty, but it won’t 
do you no good. Now beat it.” 

So quickly had she appraised and rejected him. 
Tysons, a “swell” hotel, and traveling “gents,” 
one of whom would eventually marry her, was 
her ultimate destiny she felt, and the intrusive 
nibbles of small- fry only irritated her. 

“Wait till yer asked,” he flung back defen- 
sively and skurried into the toned shadows of 
the theater that had once been a “sample” shoe 
emporium. He found a seat and sagged wearily 
into it. For a time he sat slouched forward un- 
heeding Mendelssohn’s Spring Song as rendered 
by an orchestra, whose weaker notes were con- 
cealed by the slurring of its drum. 

“The goil soitenly had nerve,” he reflected sul- 
lenly. “How ther devil she know he was going 
to ask her ter the ‘Drippin’ Dagger.’ Maybe he 
wouldn’t have no how. She weren’t much, at 
that, to be so stuck up. No, he was only kiddin’ 
her; he wouldn’t really have taken her for love 
nor money. The fresh dame!” Thus consoling 
himself, he eased his injured feelings and grad- 
ually won to a mood in which he could more com- 
pletely enjoy the feature picture which was about 
to commence. 

For the first few feet of the reel it is to be 
feared he gave the vicissitudes of the heroine but 
cursory attention, so inwardly absorbed was he 
63 


THE RETURN 


with his recent rebuff. It was a close up that 
finally recalled him, as, with a swift intake of 
breath, he caught the appeal of the girl upon the 
screen. Her picture on the posters outside had 
been both a slander and a libel. She was smaller, 
more fragile than the artist of the billboard had 
seen fit to portray her. In addition she possessed 
an atmosphere of naturalness that even the flick- 
ering screens of that earlier day were insufficient 
to dim. And when at last she turned her really 
fine eyes upon him in a long and lingering gaze 
he pressed his slim back against the stiff board of 
the seat in sheer ecstasy. It was spring, you 
remember. 

What the plot was that night he never clearly 
recalled. He knew only that the girl (Miss Emi- 
line Lorraine, the posters called her) extricated 
herself from dilemma after dilemma in a manner 
that would have caused the most skeptical to be- 
lieve in the presence of a guardian angel. And 
the dark-haired man followed her throughout 
like a modern Svengali — but ever foiled. 

In reality she was an odd type to have ap- 
pealed to Jimmie. She lacked all the luxuriant 
flamboyance of the sort of girl he had previously 
held as his ideal. She moved more slowly, more 
demurely, with none of that exotic wriggling 
even in her most tense moments. But why de- 
scribe her when every one has seen her, and sees 
64 


THE UNCONSCIOUS MUTT 


her yet? She came in with a new period in pic- 
tures under a far-sighted director, grew up with 
the game, and is still with us. And recently, 
when at last she got a script with real depth to 
it, the most skeptical were forced to admit that 
she could act and not merely look “pretty,” as had 
previously been held. 

A comedy followed, but, being in no mood for 
it, Jimmie left. Once outside he hurried past the 
ticket booth with averted head in a sort of an 
emotional haze. While from her high chair 
within the lady of the tickets watched him, wait- 
ing for the compliment of at least one backward 
glance. But when he disappeared into the night 
without so much as turning, she shrugged with 
scorn, muttered something about “little sore 
head,” and returned to her book. 

On the same night in another part of the city 
John Bennet was having a hard tussle with what 
(had he been more artistic and less a man) he 
might have called his Muse. Weeks ago he had 
received a commission to do a panel for a public 
building in a distant and more western city. The 
commission had come from Bill Utley, the city’s 
foremost citizen, a big, raw-boned, garrulous 
man who knew what he wanted and intended to 
have it no matter how much profanity he had 
to use in describing it. He had seen Bennet’s 
work, so he said, at a recent exposition, and then 
65 


THE RETURN 


and there decided that it had “punch” and “pep.” 

Though Bennet had never consciously at least 
gone in for the “punch” and “pep,” which Utley 
attributed to him, he was glad of the commission 
and had listened attentively to what was required. 

With businesslike precision Utley had come 
to the point. Throwing his black felt hat on a 
table in Bennet’s barrack of a studio he had sud- 
denly turned and stated what his city was willing 
to pay. As it was considerably more than Bennet 
would have asked his attention deepened. 

“What we want,” elucidated Utley with a pan- 
oramalike sweep of his great red hand, “is one 
of those pictures to go at the top of the wall — a 
panel I guess it’s called.” 

Bennet nodded comprehendingly. 

“If you decide to tackle this,” Utley warned, 
“I want you to do your damnedest. I’m paying 
for over half of it and if I haven’t said enough, 
add on the difference and it’ll be all right.” 

“I’m satisfied,” said Bennet. 

“Well, first, then,” said Utley, his huge hand 
now covering his eyes as though he sought to 
picture what he wished to speak, “we want about 
the usual thing, only different. Of course, 
there’s always Justice in the middle with a sword 
and a pair of scales surrounded by all the steady 
bets such as Capital, an’ Labor, an’ Commerce, 
an’ Agriculture. But when you come to Jus- 
66 


THE UNCONSCIOUS MUTT 


tice,” for a moment he paused impressively as he 
warmed to his subject, “humanize, man, human- 
ize! Don’t have her looking way off at the dis- 
tant sunset or sunrise, or whatever it is, as if 
she didn’t give a damn what happened to the 
folks about her. Have her looking down instead, 
kinder sorrowful and sympatheticlike, as though 
the whole human mix-up had sort of got her goat 
and she didn’t quite know what to do about it. 

“I was to a funeral back home a few days ago. 
A woman we’d known for a long time was bury- 
ing her only kid. After a bit she looked up at us 
all, not seeing any one in particular, I guess — 
that’s the sort of look I mean, if you get me; 
somethin’ sorrowful, yet strong, that has a sort 
of pull to it, like water going over a dam.” 

“I know,” said Bennet with new interest. “I’ve 
thought of something like that myself once or 
twice, but was a little afraid to try it out; it 
seemed rather — er — unconventional. 

“That’s the word,” seized Utley. “Unconven- 
tional, make all of ’em that way. And when you 
come to Labor don’t give us some college athlete 
in a red shirt with smooth, rippling muscles like 
a greyhound, and a back three yards long. La- 
bor’s rugged, coarse, knotty. Run your neck 
and chest together, bunch up the shoulders, an’ 
paint in sinews instead of muscles where you can. 
And don’t go in for that ‘thy humble servant 
67 


THE RETURN 


look’ on his face. Have him sort of picking at 
the lid of his lunch pail with one hand and lookin’ 
up at justice as if he wasn’t quite sure which in- 
terested him most. 

“An’ then at the back, sort of dimlike, let’s 
have a policeman an’ a burglar maybe, an’ a red 
woman, I guess you call ’em here — you know 
what I mean — a ‘chippy.’ They’re all a part of 
the city’s life and there’s no reason to leave ’em 
out just ’cause they ain’t playing the game ac- 
cordin’ to rule. Put a look in the woman’s eyes 
that says ‘I don’t give a damn for none of you.’ 
Then have her standing sort of fagged and all 
beat out in a way that gives the lie to the look in 
her eyes and leaves you feelin’ kinder sorry for 
her.” 

There was something unconsciously dramatic 
in the way the big Westerner outlined what he 
wanted that got to Bennet and made him see 
things clearly that before had been only anemic 
substances floating unchartered in the back of his 
mind. The whole thing struck him as half prac- 
tical, half absurd, depending on treatment and 
for the first time he felt slightly afraid of his 
work. There could be none of that three and 
three make six formulalike certainty to the com- 
position. Without knowing it Utley was de- 
manding inspirational work of a high grade and 
demanding it in a field that was more or less 
68 


THE UNCONSCIOUS MUTT 


rigid, unless one were to shatter conventions or 
traditions. One false step and Bennet could 
imagine how the critics would descend upon him. 

“I’ll try it,” he finally said. “Though in a way 
it’s a stiff order, if you only knew it.” 

“Seems it might be,” agreed Utley, who had 
caught something of the concern in the other’s 
face. “I figure too, you’ll have to hustle some, 
looking for the right crowd to pose for you. As 
I’ve said, the price is no object. I’m rich, the 
West has made me so, and if I can hand her back 
a life-size picture of herself, it’ll seem more like 
an even break.” 

He picked up his hat, dusted it reflectively with 
his sleeve, turning it critically about in his hand. 
“There’s one other figure I’d like you to wedge 
in if you could, though it’s hard to tell him to 
you,” he went on. “He’s the city kid, bloodless 
looking, runty. Not the healthy sort that lives 
in sunny rooms and keeps on into high school. 
The other kind. Dodges education, an’ skips 
about from job to job. He knows a lot that he 
shouldn’t, an’ not so much that he should, sort of 
an old man’s face, only wizened and flabby. Put 
a cigarette in his mouth, kinder over in one cor- 
ner, and have him standin’, his hands in his pock- 
ets, lookin’ at Justice as though he’d like to pick 
her up if he had the nerve. Oh, Hell, I can’t tell 
you more! You’ll know him when you see him. 

69 


THE RETURN 


There’re hundreds — the kind that sort of need 
something to tie to make ’em pull up. Give him 
possibilities like the rest, but all smothered up. 
The sort of kid that’s learnin’ all the nastiness in 
life before he’s had a chance to spot the good of 
it; the kind that only a miracle can shape out.” 

And so, unconsciously, by a man who had 
never seen him, was Jimmie Williams accurately 
described. 

Since the visit of big Bill Utley to Bennet’s 
studio weeks, even months, had elapsed, and the 
figures for the panel were nearing completion; 
all but one. That was the figure of the “city 
kid,” so-called by Utley. To date it had proven 
the desperation of Bennet. He had ransacked 
the town without avail. Utley’s visualization of 
just what was wanted was so clear and forceful 
it left Bennet hard to please. There were hun- 
dreds of the type in one way or another as Utley 
had said, but the broader the field the more diffi- 
cult became exact selection. 

It seemed there was always one or more qual- 
ity lacking and if possible Bennet wished to avoid 
a composite. Again he recalled the other’s 
words: “give him possibilities, but all smothered 
up.” There in the word “possibilities” lay the 
hitch. The hopelessly depraved were legion. 
There were countless “tough guys,” tough with 
an effort and self-conscious of the fact; these 
70 


THE UNCONSCIOUS MUTT 


lacked sincerity, overposed, and acted. “It’s the 
‘unconscious mutt’ I’m after,” said Bennet for 
the hundredth time; then jerked on his hat and 
flung out into the night. The same night, by the 
way, that Jimmie Williams had received his 
stinging rebuke at the hands of the ticket lady. 

After leaving the theater Jimmie had for a 
time drifted aimlessly along Sixth Avenue. It 
was Saturday night and the next item on his 
schedule of entertainment was usually a glass of 
beer. Not that he particularly craved it. In 
fact, it had to him a rather bitter and furry taste. 
It was more that it was the manly thing to do, 
and a man he already felt himself to be. Besides 
if the glass were large enough it eased that numb, 
tired feeling in his back and forced the lag from 
the oversized feet that flapped so loosely on his 
spindling, colty legs. 

At the corner of Twenty-sixth Street he 
halted, expectorated reflectively from the corner 
of a dry mouth, lit another cigarette, then cut 
over into the brighter lights of Broadway. The 
beer was better there, it seemed, though some- 
what less in quantity. He recalled one place in 
particular, generally frequented by men in even- 
ing dress. But as he had never as yet been 
shown the door he traced slowly towards it, lured 
by the memory of a huge, yellow and creamy 
cheese wrapped in a napkin. For this there was 
71 


THE RETURN 


no extra charge, once one had invested in liquid 
refreshment. The crackers, too, were crisp and 
fresh. Jimmie’s appetite was usually the most 
insistent about when he should have been asleep. 

He ambled on in the direction of this particu- 
lar cafe, his mind sharing visions of the creamy 
cheese with delicious thoughts of Miss Emiline 
Lorraine. The night was unusually warm and 
humid even for June. A sticky fog drifted 
across the island. Jimmie mopped his brow and 
occasionally examined different window dis- 
plays casually. 

At one shop in particular he paused. Behind 
the cheap plate were pictures and photographs 
both convivial and amorous. They were what 
their distributors usually list as “classy den pic- 
tures.” A sort of window sample of worse to 
follow, if one will venture within. At their best 
they are lurid, at their worst they afford a means 
of livelihood to certain individuals who collect 
them and split hairs as to their obscenity. Oc- 
casionally they suppress one, at which its sale 
trebles. Here and there about the window were 
bits of leather and bead work supposedly of sav- 
age origin. These and some postal cards com- 
pleted the attractions. 

It may be that, as Jimmie lingered, his eye of- 
fended somewhat, but being in no mood to “pluck 
72 


THE UNCONSCIOUS MUTT 


it out” he continued to gaze, a drawn smile on 
his pale, blue shadowed little face. 

Here it was that Bennet, the artist, came upon 
him and drew near, the better to study him ; using 
the adjoining window as an excuse. With prac- 
ticed rapidity he checked Jimmie up and found 
him brazen, wizened, knowing, and tough; and 
best of all for his purpose, unconsciously so. But 
one quality was lacking. To save him he could 
find no suggestion of latent possibilities. Even 
in the boy’s fagged eyes there appeared no sign 
of purpose or, to use the thoughts of Bennet, no 
traces of a soul. 

“That’s the devil of it,” he reflected, “always 
something lacking.” With a final glance at Jim- 
mie he started to move on, then paused. Into 
the boy’s expression was coming a slow change. 
As Bennet watched, it grew. The chin thrust 
out a bit, the old man’s shoulders beneath the 
cheap, flashily cut coat straightened with a frac- 
tional, stiffened movement, the slack corners of 
his mouth took themselves up. Then a dash of 
color dotted his face. It somehow translated 
itself to Bennet as embarrassment or shame. He 
couldn’t quite tell which, and cared less so long 
as it was there. He was no reformer, merely an 
artist badly in need of a type, which at last it 
seemed he had found. 

The cause of this shadowed change in Jimmie 
73 


THE RETURN 


Williams was in reality due to the fact that 
among the cheap truck of the window he had sud- 
denly found himself again gazing into the whole- 
some face and persuasive eyes of Miss Emiline 
Lorraine. Like a glint of blue sky from between 
grey and smutty clouds her picture stood forth 
from among the shoddy display. And again that 
odd thrill went through him as it had before that 
evening at the picture house. 

As for his mounting color, Bennet’s interpreta- 
tion of it was reasonably correct. It was partly 
embarrassment, that those soft questioning eyes 
should have discovered him viewing with interest 
the rather coolly draped figures that surrounded 
her. The other part was anger, that Miss Lor- 
raine’s photograph should be forced to share and 
compete in such questionable surroundings. 

“It wasn’t right,” he re-decided. “No, she 
didn’t belong there!” Suddenly he turned, 
plunged into the narrow entrance of the shop, 
and demanded, half accusingly, the picture’s 
price. He knew it would be “steep,” but wasn’t 
quite prepared for the figure the proprietor put 
upon it. 

“Two dollars,” challenged the owner of the 
pictures. He was a large, torpid man, with no 
forehead to speak of, beneath which burned a pair 
of shrewd eyes which seemed to hold all the intel- 
ligence one missed in his brow. 

74 


THE UNCONSCIOUS MUTT 


“Gee, what a soak !” Jimmie flung back. Even 
as he spoke he felt somehow ashamed to thus 
haggle over an object so personal as the picture 
had already becQme. 

“Soak nothing,” came back the proprietor. 
“Number’s limited; only one to a store. Maybe 
the others are already sold. The fellow as gets 
this ’ll have the bulge on all the rest.” He rolled 
ponderously to the little door which opened into 
the window, jerked it wide, and removed the 
picture. For a moment he stood gazing at it in 
apparent rapture, then blowing it free of imag- 
inary dust he turned it reverently toward Jimmie. 
“Miss Emiline Lorraine, America’s foremost 
female movie actress,” he chanted unctuously. 

In justice to Jimmie it must here be remarked 
that there was nothing “small” in his make-up. 
He was what is known as “a good spender” with 
the little he had. But there were certain pressing 
reasons for economy. Of late Mrs. Calvin, his 
landlady, a cautious and prosperous woman, had 
developed the habit of collecting for his room a 
week in advance. It was an unlucky room or so 
she felt. And three “skippers” within the year, 
who had left nothing but their good will behind, 
had cemented the notion in her mind, and made 
her obdurate. Then there was the final payment 
on the suit he was wearing, due within a week; 

75 


THE RETURN 


and the suit was already nearing the end of a 
short, if not a gay, life. 

Between Jimmie and all these crowding ex- 
penses was only the meager pittance of an all- 
round boy in a moving and warehouse concern. 
Besides, the job was hard on his clothes as well 
as his hands. 

“One seventy-five,” broke in the proprietor at 
length. He had sensed, from Jimmie’s face, the 
tide of business as going against him. “That’s 
the last word — take it or leave it,” he threatened. 

So Jimmie took it and watched with nervous 
apprehension, as the picture was wrapped in 
cheap yellow paper and bound with still cheaper 
cotton string. 

It was money well spent, had he known it, 
which he didn’t at the time. Then all he could 
think of was the personal sacrifice the purchase 
entailed. Vaguely he realized that his evening’s 
indulgence of beer and cheese must be foregone. 
But by walking to his work and smoking more 
moderately he might even up in a week or two. 
So with something of the feeling that may have 
been shared by early martyrs who gloried in their 
cause, he slipped the thin package beneath his 
thin arm and passed jauntily out into the street. 

During the transaction Bennet, who had 
drawn near the open door of the shop, was an 
amused spectator. The changes of expression 
76 


THE UNCONSCIOUS MUTT 


that crossed Jimmie’s face as he debated the pur- 
chase had left him still more fully convinced that 
the boy was the type he wanted. 

“You beat me to it,” he ventured in easy 
friendliness as Jimmie emerged. He indicated 
the package beneath the other’s arm. 

Jimmie paused and glanced appraisingly at 
Bennet’s tall, lank figure. To beat any one to 
anything was for him always an intense pleasure. 

“There’s no more of ’em,” he advised. “Only 
one to a store.” Competition was already giving 
added value to his purchase. 

“That so?” Bennet’s tone held the proper 
blend of disappointed surprise. He knew better, 
but saw no reason for displaying his knowledge. 
“They must have held you up pretty well for it 
in that case.” 

“One seventy-five,” admitted Jimmie a trifle 
ruefully. 

Bennet shook his head incredulously as though 
impeaching the unscrupulousness of shop keep- 
ers in general. “Still,” he ventured, “she’s a 
most attractive girl.” 

“Begular queen,” Jimmie agreed. There was 
almost reverence in his slang. Again he rather 
enjoyed the envy of this tall stranger. 

“Give you five for it?” 

“Nothin’ doin’,” Jimmie declined. At that 
moment fifty would not have taken it. 

77 


THE RETURN 


Tacitly they turned and walked slowly up 
Broadway. The tall, lean man, with his refined, 
self-centered face, side by side with the “uncon- 
scious mutt.” And before they had reached Fif- 
ty-ninth Street Jimmie had promised to pose, 
quite staggered by the value put upon his 
services. 

“You live with your family?” suggested Ben- 
net as he scribbled Jimmie’s address on a card. 
He intended there should be no slip after his 
diligent weeks of search. 

“Nix on the family stuff for mine,” Jimmie 
denied. “The old woman’s dead,” his voice 
trailed off to unconscious melancholy. “As for 
the old man” — here a surly note crept into his 
speech — “what with him firin’ things ’round, an’ 
cursin’, an’ thro win’ me outer bed — an’ me 
littler’n him — I beat it. He boozed, yer know.” 

“Oh, I see,” said Bennet, and they parted. 

It would be pleasant to add that as the weeks 
passed Bennet developed a big brother sort of 
interest in the boy and eventually helped him to 
different paths — but he didn’t. To Bennet, Jim- 
mie was a type, nothing more, and to spoil a type 
was to his mind an artistic sacrilege. And as 
none of those awakening incidents, that at times 
break down professional barriers, intervened, a 
type he remained to the panel’s end. A very suc- 
cessful end at that, as Bennet and Utley both 
78 


THE UNCONSCIOUS MUTT 


agreed when together they surveyed the finished 
work. In fact, so pleased was big Bill Utley 
that he added to his check as well as his pro- 
fanity in token of his delight. 

So the panel went West, a glowing, powerful 
thing, saved from the ridiculous by Bennet’s skill 
and concentration. And, for those who care to 
look for it or are capable of seeing, it tells an old, 
old story in a new way, and gains in the telling. 

For the sake of Jimmie’s history we must fol- 
low him back into the dusty atmosphere of the 
packing room in the moving and warehouse con- 
cern, his ten per week, and his dreams of Miss 
Lorraine. 

After all, it is these dreams that concern us 
most, though many of them occurred while Jim- 
mie was awake and perspiringly nailing up pack- 
ing cases. They were none the less vivid for 
this. 

Certain it was that after that first night she 
seldom left Jimmie’s thoughts. With one sweep 
of her eyes she had won him completely, not to 
mention countless other Jimmies in various walks 
of life. It was this talent for winning people 
that justified the rather frequent and staggering 
demands for increased salary that her manager 
received. For behind the young lady’s un- 
worldly, soulful gaze lay an excellent business 
mind, grown acute through previous years of 
79 


THE RETURN 


hardship. Her origin had been but a peg above 
Jimmie’s — not that it really matters, or would 
have mattered, if he had known it. 

He followed her every release religiously; saw 
some of them several times, in fact. And each 
time that he left he was more completely hers, 
and longed more ardently to make her his. Such 
thoughts may seem a bit presumptuous for a ten 
per week clerk, but, you see, they had told him 
in his brief sessions at school that every fellow 
had a chance to become President; so why not 
this? Almost every week the papers, particu- 
larly the Sunday ones, recounted more impos- 
sible happenings. And Jimmie was a careful 
reader of the news — from the sporting page right 
through to the front. 

It was a mirror in a shoe store window that 
injected the first pangs of stabbing doubt into 
Jimmie’s romance. He had surreptitiously 
paused before it for a view of himself to be 
snatched while he ostensibly inspected the shoes. 
It was one of those devilishly frank glances that 
slap ten years on to one’s life in the twinkling 
of an eye and cause even a well man to wonder 
what is the matter with him. I am of the opinion 
that it also injured the sale of the shoes. No one 
could possibly expect to outlive a new pair after 
viewing himself in it. In addition, on this par- 
80 


THE UNCONSCIOUS MUTT 

ticular day, the sun was at a bad angle as Jimmie 
paused. 

The image he caught was a tall enough young 
fellow, considering his years, yet one oddly 
shriveled, somehow. The padding in his shoul- 
ders (you remember the period) threw his collar 
wide from his neck, and gave to his chest an ap- 
pearance similar to the inside of a chopping 
bowl. An over-long and blond cowlick had es- 
caped from beneath the crumpled visor of his 
cap and draped itself mussily across a rather 
good brow, if one hand chanced to notice it. His 
ears were several sizes too large while two blue, 
tired-looking lines circled downward from his 
eyes, gradually smudging into his lean cheeks. 

As Jimmie stood, not entirely satisfied with 
what he saw, there suddenly seemed to come be- 
tween him and the glass like a ghost from the 
evening before the image of Pendexter Euwing, 
Miss Lorraine’s leading man. Tall, debonair, 
gracefully powerful — he seemed again to see him 
as he had imprinted the usual and final kiss on 
her yielding lips. He had kissed her too, he re- 
membered, as if it were a mutual benefit rather 
than the act of adoration he felt it should have 
been. 

And so, in the heart of Jimmie Williams, were 
the seeds of rivalry and jealousy sown. Not al- 
ways the harmful emotions they are held to be, 
81 


THE RETURN 


if one knows how to use them, or stumbles on to 
the secret by chance. For that evening Jimmie 
bathed more carefully and extensively than usual, 
had his hair cut, even to the treasured cowlick, 
and shined his own shoes. 

Later, before going to bed, he raised the gas 
to its limit and stood somberly inspecting the 
picture of Miss Lorraine. Since its purchase he 
had added a frame; a gilt one, at that, with large 
peanut-brittle looking borders that vied stren- 
uously with the picture for first place in one’s 
attention. And Miss Lorraine gazed back at 
him with that “hear nothing, say nothing, see 
nothing evil” look which had made her famous, 
until Jimmie, thrilled to the core, muttered rev- 
erently, “some kid,” then turned off the gas, and 
climbed into bed. 

Somewhat later a drifting moon threw its pale 
light over the sordid squalor of near-by rooftops, 
with their black snoutlike chimneys thrusting up 
into the night. It moved on until at last it fell 
upon the face of the sleeping Jimmie Williams. 
Here for a space it lingered, giving back even 
more than the Broadway mirror had taken away. 
Then slowly it passed on and again the room 
grew dark. 

Of all the emotions Jimmie had ever expe- 
rienced this feeling of personal dissatisfaction, 
caused by the Broadway mirror, was in the long 
82 


THE UNCONSCIOUS MUTT 


run to prove the best. In the weeks that followed 
he studied carefully every detail of Poindexter 
Euwing from his carefully cut clothes to his easy, 
a trifle too languid, manners. Euwing had his 
faults, even the directors admitted that. But 
because he never “hogged the film,” to put it in 
studio terms, he and Miss Lorraine hit it off 
famously, much to the benefit of the pictures. 

Grudgingly, Jimmie had to admit it wasn’t 
altogether the clothes that gave that coveted air 
to Euwing. It was the lithe, rugged build be- 
neath them. For Euwing exercised plentifully, 
but never labored. His wife could have vouched 
for that, though she never did, because they were 
very much in love. Again there was something 
in Euwing’s face, a sort of poise, that only 
mental application of one sort or another can 
give. All this Jimmie noted in a sketchy way, 
but with a growing comprehension that spoke 
well for his intuitions. It was this feeling of 
physical inferiority that finally led him to join a 
certain association that really offers a lot in the 
way of health and opportunities for the money. 

True, it was somewhat of a wrench to tear 
himself away from the shrine of Miss Lorraine. 
But he felt that the shoulder upon which she was 
some day to rest her head really should have a 
little more breadth and depth to it. So it came 
about that Jimmie lined up in a large room with 
83 


THE RETURN 


a running track about its top. Here with many 
others in various stages of physical perfection 
and decline he went through “setting-up” exer- 
cises to the swinging lilt of a snappily played 
piano. 

Later, after a shower bath always rigidly in- 
sisted upon, he was allowed to dabble in the 
swimming tank. And eventually he learned to 
swim; first the old breast stroke, then the others. 
After which he would eat more than he really 
could afford in the restaurant below. 

Fortunately for the progression of the human 
race difficulties are apt to present themselves 
singly. If it were not for this fig leaves and 
sunburn might still be the prevailing attire. It 
was just as Jimmie was rounding into something 
that more closely resembled a man that he ran 
into snag number two in the course of true love. 
He came to it one morning through the agency 
of a Sunday paper, which he was reading while 
he reclined in bed, a bottle of milk and an empty 
package of breakfast food at his elbow. 

It was in a section of the paper largely given 
to advertisements that Jimmie’s eye fell upon 
the picture of a girl wearing a “creation” similar 
to one Miss Lorraine had affected some nights 
before. Beneath was the price: forty-seven dol- 
lars and fifty cents. Jimmie started and sat up- 
right in bed, his glance across the room on his own 
84 


THE UNCONSCIOUS MUTT 


suit — which had “set him back” some ten odd 
dollars. Then, weakly, he sank down upon his 
scrubby, poorly stuffed pillow. 

“This marryin’ game must take scads of 
dough,” he reflected. Vaguely he had thought 
along those lines once or twice before. But the 
price of the dress had brought things to a head, 
and he was staggered at the giganticness of what 
lay before him. 

His mind then flew to his firm, which appar- 
ently rated him as cheaply as he had previously 
rated himself. “Ten per week and a girl whose 
togs cost forty-seven fifty — gee!” Jimmie 

needed no efficiency expert to show him the size 
of what he had undertaken. For he had so 
planned it that Miss Lorraine was to relinquish 
her career and lavish upon him alone her high- 
priced charms. Nor could he think of benefiting, 
even indirectly, by money which she had earned. 
His was not the continental point of view. It 
was to be his “game” and he would pay the way, 
and unless he became a burglar, as once or twice 
he had hazily considered, it would be a long road. 
Again he had to admit that even burglars at 
times got caught. Besides Miss Lorraine might 
not, at heart, care for a cracksman husband, 
though in her last release she had married one to 
reform him. Even in that case Pendexter Eu- 
wing, for he it still was, had entered upon a career 
85 


THE RETURN 


of crime that netted him several thousand dollars 
annually, merely to buy medicine for an invalid 
sister. Six thousand dollars worth of medicine 
ought to make an awful husky girl, Jimmie 
whimsically reflected with a flash of that insight 
later to be his. 

Of course, Miss Lorraine was not mercenary. 
There was scarcely a release that did not assure 
one of that and carefully worded cut-ins devel- 
oped the same thought. Still, the very nature of 
his affections made him shrink from eventually 
appearing before the shrine of his love with 
scrubby tokens of affection. There must first be 
a little home of some sort — he rather favored the 
bungalow type, locale Los Angeles, with a de- 
serted and well-ordered street leading up to it. 

Vaguely, too, he associated an automobile, of 
one sort or another, with the proper atmosphere. 
For this was in the days before the heroines made 
the popular round trip, from squalor to riches, 
then back to squalor again, where only true love 
is supposed to abide. At that period an income 
of over three figures did not automatically brand 
one as a roue or villain. Consequently they were 
featured rather than taxed. 

For a time Jimmie lay at full length on his 
excelsior-stuffed mattress, abstractedly flexing 
his toes in despondent concentration. Greater 
men than he have spent the morning hours simi- 
86 


THE UNCONSCIOUS MUTT 

larly, though in somewhat better surroundings. 
A quick despair had entered his soul — the same 
soul that Bennet the artist was at first inclined 
to believe did not exist. As an express elevator 
in a modern office building, his dreams and as- 
pirations shot down the shaft of hope until with 
a mental thud they landed at the bottom. And 
the bottom we are told is the correct point from 
which to work up. 

Fortunately, perhaps, for Jimmie, he had 
never run across the cheerless philosophy of a 
certain individual who claims that eighty-six per 
cent (I think it is) of all undertakings end in 
failure. I doubt if his optimism at the moment 
was equal to grappling with the thought. 

What I do know is that some hours later Mrs. 
Calvin, the landlady, opened Jimmie’s door un- 
der the impression that he was out, and gazed 
into his rather dirty and swollen little face. I 
think Jimmie had been crying — men do at times, 
though not often, and they go about it rather 
quietly as a rule. 

Now Mrs. Calvin’s heart was large, but so 
was her family. On warm days her offspring 
densely populated the street for many rods in 
each direction. Consequently her surplus affec- 
tions were under a heavy drain which left little 
for her roomers. Again, she had come invariably 
to associate sorrow with poverty. This put Jim- 
87 


THE RETURN 


mie and his apparent grief under the ban of her 
suspicions, and caused her to collect immediately 
for his room in advance, in accordance with her 
custom. Only after he had dug the amount from 
the shallow pocket of his shiny, threadbare trous- 
ers did she unbend enough to hazard the opinion 
that it was a fine day. Jimmie, being in no mood 
for argument, agreed with her. 

When she had left he flung back among the 
mussed covers of the bed, and gazed longingly to 
that section of the wall where hung the photo- 
graph of Miss Lorraine. As he looked, his face 
gradually cleared and settled, until eventually 
there passed over it a shadow of that purpose 
which somewhere within him was faintly flicker- 
ing. For the amount of romance and inspiration 
that can be wrung from a picture in the absence 
of living competition is truly remarkable. And 
so it was this picture that caused Jimmie to enter 
upon a campaign of preparedness that should 
have put his country to shame. 

A number of years later, some of which had 
been rather bitter and discouraging, Jimmie Wil- 
liams stepped from a train to the platform of a 
well-kept station. I doubt if one would have 
recognized him as the Jimmie of old. His fore- 
head and chin were more in evidence than in the 
days gone by; the line of the nose straighter, 
more defined. His eyes, still appraising, were no 
88 


THE UNCONSCIOUS MUTT 


longer cynical. Instead they were rather keen 
and amused at life, but now the amusement was 
wholesome. As for his shoulders — they ran a 
close second to Pendexter Euwing’s. 

This was the Jimmie Williams his firm had 
transferred W est to handle their bond and mort- 
gage business in a growing city. He took with 
him his bride. Not his old love, Miss Emiline 
Lorraine of the pictures, we are forced to admit. 
Instead, an attractive little woman with a rich, 
full mouth. In the curves of her lips were traces 
of the humor that lurked in Jimmie’s eyes. 

They were met at the station by a tall, raw- 
boned figure of a man with a crag of a nose that 
jutted out with certitude from beneath a black 
felt hat. And as Jimmie introduced his wife the 
black felt hat was removed with a “welcome to 
our city” flourish, then carefully dusted on the 
man’s sleeve and returned to his head. 

“Happy to meet you, Mrs. Williams,” said big 
Bill Utley. He appeared a bit older than on 
the night he had outlined his idea for a panel to 
Bennet, the artist, but he was still virile and 
intense. 

“You’ll both eat with me,” he advised, and that 
settled it. They entered his car — he drove it him- 
self — and rode to the Commercial Club. He was, 
as Jimmie eventually learned, the city’s self-ap- 
pointed host to all newcomers. 

89 


THE RETURN 


“By the way, I want you both to stay with me 
till you’ve picked out a residence,” Utley later 
broke in, as they were finishing a well-served 
luncheon. “But first I want you to see our city. 
We’ve only commenced, in a way, but what there 
is isn’t so bad.” 

So again they entered his car and rode from 
point to point. About the streets was a home- 
like and informal air, despite the scurry of busi- 
ness. Every third man seemed to know Utley 
and called or waved out to him as he passed. He 
was running slowly in second, indicating nu- 
merous sites of interest. 

“That’s our new theater,” he pointed with a 
sweep of long arm. “The contractor and the 
architect got together and skinned us for all they 
knew how. But they did such a pretty job I 
didn’t have the heart to say much. Besides the 
architect feller had a sick wife in Los Angeles 
who needed a lot of extras. I just took him 
aside — he seemed the more human of the two and 
told him I was no fool, but he was welcome. 

“After he got through lookin’ scared he 
thanked me most politely, an’ said that the money 
I was kicking about had really gone into “values” 
which would increase with the years. I wondered 
what the devil he really meant. You see he had 
me at the time, for I couldn’t argue about his 
90 


THE UNCONSCIOUS MUTT 


“values” without admittin’ he’d stuck me on a 
new word.” 

As he rambled on, garrulous as ever, the car 
lagged to a pause before the Municipal Building. 

“This is my special favorite,” Utley advised. 
“I want you to see it, inside an’ out. It’s neat, 
every inch of it.” 

They followed him to the street, then slowly 
climbed the graded steps that led to a well-built, 
appropriate-looking structure. Here Utley led 
them about, like the born showman that he was, 
dwelling impressively upon each detail which 
served but to make the building the twin of 
countless others. 

After a circuit of the various rooms, beginning 
with the Health Department and ending with 
office of the Charity Commissioners, Utley 
paused before a green baize door. Above it 
white enameled letters, several sizes too large, an- 
nounced the Council Chamber. Then, as he 
swung it wide, they entered a large, high-ceil- 
inged, hall-like room with a slightly raised plat- 
form at one end. The floor space above had been 
sacrificed, allowing the walls to run some two 
stories in height. 

“The Council Chamber,” Utley announced, 
in case they had escaped the lettering above the 
door. “We do considerable business here; things 
91 


THE RETURN 


get pretty lively at times. Those chairs over 
there are for the public. Not much that’s secret 
in this town. Ladies welcome, too” — this with 
an elaborate bow at Mrs. Jimmie. “Only last 
Saturday Ma Turner blew in, and expressed 
herself that we were all a lot of pikers in not 
cornin’ across for an addition to the hospital. Her 
husband’s one of the aldermen, an’ he held out 
longer than any of us, but she fixed him on the 
way home.” He paused momentarily as his 
glance chanced to fall on Jimmie, who was 
standing somewhat apart, his gaze riveted on 
the upper spaces of the wall above the platform. 

“Yes, that’s our panel,” said Utley. There 
was a trace of diffidence in his voice. “You’ve 
probably heard of it. Most folks have. We 
stirred ’em up, all right. All the art journals 
were rough-housing each other for weeks as to 
whether it was A number one, or strictly N. G. 
One of ’em even said I’d polluted Bennet — he’s 
the painter feller that did it — with my Western 
money. ‘Bennet falls prey to eccentric old vul- 
garian,’ was the way they put it. Then along 
comes the biggest art paper of ’em all and says 
it’s a hummer. At which the rest of ’em corked 
up for a time. Then they begin to see good spots 
in it. Notice the little feller over there,” he in- 
dicated with an air of proprietorship. “The 
92 


THE UNCONSCIOUS MUTT 


unconscious mutt,” Bennet called him. “Ain’t 
he the great little skee-sicks, though? Get 
on to the way he’s sizing up Justice. 
An’ yet, as you look, there’s something 
half decent in his face at that. Ain’t there? 
Bennet says he wore out over a half a dozen pair 
of shoes gettin’ the right type. Some paint 
slinger — eh, what?” 

Jimmie Williams had learned control along 
with many other things, yet for once he nearly 
lost it. His ears, that somehow he had grown 
up to, were suddenly very glowing and red. 

“Yes,” he forced at length, “a great artist, I 
guess.” 

“A wizard!” Utley emphatically assured. 
“Why, to me that kid’s so real I always sorter 
felt I ought to look him up and do something 
for him.” 

“Perhaps he has changed,” Jimmie’s voice was 
none too sure. 

“Maybe so,” the other agreed reflectively. “I 
always felt he’d either make good or land in jail. 
There’s no half way in that face. What do you 
think of him, Mrs. Williams?” 

As Utley talked she had moved close to Jim- 
mie and now stood, deep affection in the light 
pressure of her hand upon his arm. 

93 


THE RETURN 


“I think,” she said softly, “the whole thing is 
simply wonderful.” There was subtle under- 
standing in her tones. 

“And as for that little fellow — of course he’s 
made good.” 


STILL UNAFRAID 

T HEY carried what was left of Holden 
from the trampled fields beyond Rich- 
* mond. For months he lay in a corner 
on a rickety hospital cot — waiting for the end 
which did not come. 

One day Grant entered the sun-blistered pine 
barrack that served as a hospital — Grant and a 
cigar. He was looking for one Holden by name, 
and the attendant guided him to the cot in the 
corner, where for a time he talked in a low voice, 
his eyes making frequent references to the cigar. 
He spoke of the other’s bravery, of special men- 
tion and a pension; then passed on in a cloud of 
smoke. From that day Holden commenced to 
mend. 

Eventually he was allowed to return to his 
little stone-strewn, weed-grown farm, where he 
began life anew. And the pension helped consid- 
erably when it came. 

Holden never regretted having served his 
country, even when, in years to come, the sea- 
wafted fogs caused old wounds to twinge and the 
drag in his steps to increase. Perhaps having 
lived so close to the land since boyhood had im- 
bued him more deeply with a sense of the sacred- 
95 


THE RETURN 


ness of defending it. Eventually, others from 
his regiment returned and again attempted the 
old, familiar routines of their existence. 

Gradually the little farm commenced to revive 
through Holden’s halting efforts, and the tact- 
fully rendered assistance of his neighbors, until 
at last it was again able to maintain him and pro- 
vide for his simple wants. There were compen- 
sations of a kind in his meager existence, for at 
length he grew into a local oracle. And when, 
after many years, the countryside could no longer 
listen with interest, they still listened patiently 
as battles were refought and sites retaken. So 
the little man pattered limping through the years 
in the wake of his groping stick, as one by one his 
comrades died. 

Then came the day when the spoiled Play Boy 
of Europe could no longer refrain from violently 
comparing his great toy, the army, with the toys 
of other nations less ready to compete. And 
again Holden and his recollections sprang to 
prominence. At first he half resented, and for 
a time even disbelieved reports concerning the 
extent of the struggle, feeling that in some in- 
tangible way it dwarfed his own experiences. 
But at length the sheer magnitude of it awed him 
to dazed and wondering contemplation, until at 
last his own country rose, stripped, and tenta- 
tively entered the fray. 

96 


STILL UNAFRAID 


Secluded as he was in his little backwater of 
life, far removed from the swift surge of com- 
merce, the slow influx of volunteers stung his 
aged nerves to rage. The realization that in 
times of prosperity the call of duty is somewhat 
dimmed beneath the rush of factories failed to 
reach him. The lonely and self-conscious re- 
cruiting officers brought pity to his heart, invec- 
tive to his lips. 

A village meeting was called in an effort to 
construct a company of local volunteers. Holden 
was invited to speak. On the way he passed 
Gerald Boyce and a group of cronies giving 
physical support with their backs to the corner 
drugstore. 

“Coming?” inquired Holden pleasantly, nod- 
ding in the direction of the meeting. He knew 
some of them and had known their fathers better. 

A moment’s silence, followed by a slight shift- 
ing of feet. Then Boyce pushed forward. He 
was a newcomer among the street corner con- 
tingency, but, as his capacity for obscene repartee 
was unquenchable, he ruled supreme by word of 
mouth. 

“Coming where?” he questioned. His sullen, 
heavy-lidded black eyes held a sardonic gleam. 

“To the meeting,” explained Holden with dif- 
ficult pleasantness. 

Boyce laughed. There were volumes of insult 
97 


THE RETURN 


in the timbre of his mirth, which was echoed 
more conservatively by his companions. 

“Old man,” said he, “we’re runnin’ a counter 
attraction. Won’t you join us?” He proffered 
a vicious looking cigar, drawn ostentatiously 
from a loose pocket. 

Holden’s mild blue eyes shot with fire. He 
gripped his ever-necessary cane tightly, then put- 
ting all his force into one aching blow, struck 
down at the other’s extended hand. The cane 
connected accurately. Boyce cursed and lurched 
tentatively forward; then paused, deterred by 
some half-fledged sense of fitness. The old 
soldier held his ground defiantly, very erect and 
trembling badly with excitement. 

“See here, my fightin’ cock,” growled Boyce, 
resorting to his favorite weapon, his tongue, 
“you might as well know it’s a busted wreck like 
you, toppling about town that keeps half the 
fellows from enlistin’. If you really wanted to 
serve your country, you’d go an’ jump off the 
dock. Out of sight, out of mind, you know,” he 
sneered. 

Holden’s face was ashen as he turned and, 
avoiding the meeting, hobbled painfully up the 
long stretch of dust-laden road back to his little 
farm. Slowly and more slowly he plodded on. 
His direct mind, become too literal with loneli- 
ness and age to weigh properly the gibe of a 
98 


STILL UNAFRAID 


street corner loafer, was working jerkily. He 
paused and meditatively replaced a fallen stone 
from a crumbling wall, then disappeared into his 
house. Soon he emerged, carrying a small 
bundle. Crossing a plowed and sun-baked strip 
of field, he entered the cool, dry shadows of a 
big, rough barn. 

With reverent hands he unwrapped the little 
bundle and gazed down upon a yellowing crayon 
of Grant. At a distance a pinched-faced and 
surreptitious cat watched him furtively from a 
mow of hay. High above, a lone swallow trailed 
aimlessly along the droning eaves. Breaking his 
re very, Holden hung the crayon high upon a 
projecting nail, then crossed to the opposite mow 
and, with careful aim, tossed to the beam above 
a faded rope. Soon all was ready. With his 
steadfast gaze upon the faded crayon, he saluted 
with stiff but military precision, then stepped off 
into eternity. 

While, from above, the creaking rafters and 
the sucking wind in the eaves breathed down a 
dirge upon him. 








■ 




. 

























AS YESTERDAY 

M cCORMICK pushed his rubber heels 
gropingly along the side of the cheap 
trunk, sucked at an expensive cigar, 
and gazed speculatively at the somewhat 
shrunken form of the dancing master. 

“Carrington,” said he at length, “I like you, 
but you’re out of date.” 

The other, from the depths of a red wool 
wrapper, started nervously, an undefined appre- 
hension shading his glance. He made as if to 
reply. 

“Let me do the talking,” forestalled McCor- 
mick, with the brusqueness of employer to em- 
ployee. “I’ve hinted at what I mean, but you 
couldn’t or wouldn’t meet with the idea. I’m 
running this hotel from a business standpoint, 
not a sentimental one. The public wants new 
dances. You” — he emphasized the point with a 
plump pink fist — “insist on handing out old 
ones.” 

“I thought everything was satisfactory,” de- 
murred Carrington. “I have heard of no com- 
plaints.” 

“Complaints?” snapped the manager. “Look 
101 


THE RETURN 


at my grill-room receipts. They’ve dropped a 
half. Why? Because every one goes over to the 
Ledge Crest, where they can get what they want. 
It’s up to you. Limber up, shake the kinks out 
of that orchestra, and make things hum, or — ” 
He paused; the other’s face was pitiable in its 
disinclination. 

“Come,” said McCormick bluffly, rising from 
the trunk, apelike, with the aid of his pudgy 
arms. “Brace up.” He passed over to Carring- 
ton, slapping him reassuringly on the back. “We 
all have to try a few stunts that don’t exactly 
please us before we pass in. That’s life, I guess.” 
Then, as the other attempted no reply, “I can 
see how it grates, for I can imagine the kind of 
bringing up you’ve had — mother’s love, Sunday 
afternoon walks, with tea at five, and all that.” 

“Are not some of the steps slightly — er — un- 
necessary?” suggested Carrington, almost plead- 
ingly. 

“Nothing is unnecessary that brings in the 
money,” assured the manager. “Paste that in 
your pocket-book, and you’ll find more in it than 
you’ve got now,” he added with unconscious 
brutality. 

“I shall endeavor to meet with your wishes,” 
acquiesced Carrington finally, with that uncon- 
scious precision of speech so much a part of him. 

“Good; and if you find you’re a bit lame at 
102 


AS YESTERDAY 


first, try a Turkish bath and charge it to us.” 
He flung open the door, then turned, completely 
filling it. “Remember, we don’t expect miracles. 
Take a week to break in; then show us. Good 
luck!” And he was gone. 

“ ‘Show us,’ ” the words rankled. “He, a Car- 
rington, had to ‘show them’ all because — ” Then 
his thoughts rushed back through the years. 

The odor of cooking permeated his cheap and 
gratuitous little room, placed uncomfortably 
near the kitchen, and he closed the window. For 
a space he sat huddled forward on the small iron 
bed lost in thought. Slowly he raised his head, 
meeting his own gaze in the opposite mirror. 
Long and steadfastly he appraised himself. And, 
as he looked, slowly at first but with unconscious 
certainty, his expression commenced to alter. 
The tired droop at the corners of the mouth 
faded, the eyes gradually widened, the head be- 
came more erect, and at length he smiled. 

It was the mechanics of the smile that first 
recalled him, filling him with a sickening disgust. 
He had heard that pugilists cultivated what they 
termed a fighting face, and he wondered if it was 
similarly assumed, and if it veiled as many un- 
pleasant recollections. 

He rose languidly, divesting himself of the red 
wool wrapper, and stood in scant attire before 
the mirror, missing no detail, from the slightly 
103 


THE RETURN 


shrunken muscles to the vague suggestion of a 
droop about his shoulders. 

With a little shrug, he straightened and ran 
the military brushes concealingly through the 
thinner portions of his hair, then carefully re- 
moved his dress suit from the closet and surveyed 
it ruefully. There was a spread to the seams, a 
rustiness to the lapels, and, in the frank morning 
light, a shade of green had commenced to blend 
with the black of the cloth. 

With careful reverence he replaced it, packed 
a small valise, and left for New York. Some 
hours later, in Professor Mizzenhoff’s studio, 
with the assistance of an extremely energetic 
young woman, he commenced, with ready intel- 
ligence but reluctant feet, his homage to the de- 
mands of the public. His progress was rapid 
and within a few days his loose pumps clicked 
abandonedly upon his long slim feet to the latest 
and most syncopated airs. 

“You certainly will be the lady killer,” panted 
his partner after a particularly long bout during 
which she had attempted to tire him. 

Carrington smilingly allowed her to misinter- 
pret his ambitions. Then, as the piano from be- 
hind the screen again resumed the hurried meas- 
ures, he turned in his last ticket and departed — a 
disciple of the modern dance. 

104 


AS YESTERDAY 


“What luck?” suggested McCormick when he 
returned. 

“The best,” replied Carrington with a forced 
assumption of blitheness. 

His brief sojourn in the metropolis had em- 
phasized that youth (or at least the semblance of 
it) was at a premium. 

“Seems to have done you good,” speculated 
the other. “Think you could show me a few of 
the twists?” 

Carrington thought so, and in the twilight of 
the dim and echoing ballroom he patiently tu- 
tored his plodding employer. 

“It’s good enough for those who like it,” finally 
flung out the backward pupil as he stalked off. 

Carrington retired to his room, relaxing 
wanly into a chair. He was acutely conscious of 
the week’s unusual exertion. 

Eventually he roused himself enough to write 
his monthly letter. In these letters he became, 
for the time being, a dashing Wall Street spec- 
ulator. He saw and attempted to portray him- 
self as a suave man of the world, become too much 
of a bon vivant and trifler to more than hint at 
old ties and promises. In a distant town a 
woman, with quiet, complacent eyes, read these 
letters ponderingly. Then she would gaze ab- 
sently down the deserted village street, an unde- 
fined question shadowing her glance. 

105 


THE RETURN 


But for once the letter progressed falteringly. 
His fancies seemed jaded. His visionings of 
the great and near-great were vague ; the impro- 
vised scraps of their conversation rang false. 

Suddenly a great aversion swept through him. 
The role he was playing stood forth in all its 
petty miserableness, from the first months, when 
he had glossed over his failures with fiction, to the 
present, when he sat alone in the tawdry little 
room, confronted by the voluminous falsehood of 
his life. Grudgingly he pushed his memory back 
along the years, past painful episodes in which he 
had avovided former friends and acquaintances 
that his pretense might not be discovered. 

Flinging back in his chair he sat dully, like an 
etching of defeat, his aristocratic features slightly 
marred by the instability and tragedy of his ex- 
pression; and, thus goading himself with the past, 
he fell asleep. 

He awoke with a start; across the courtyard he 
could see the dining room; dinner was in prog- 
ress. Pressing on the light he hastily commenced 
to dress. Soon he was ready. But for once his 
face failed to smile back at him from the mirror. 
There was a foreign hardness in his features, a 
vague suggestion of recklessness. 

Before leaving his room he again seated him- 
self at the desk. Briefly he hesitated, then hastily 
commenced to write. The letters stretched them- 
106 


AS YESTERDAY 


selves loosely rugged upon the white page, 
strangely contrary to his usual precise script. 

“There,” he breathed with a slight catch in his 
voice. 

He pushed the scrawl into an envelope, ad- 
dressed it, then placing it in his pocket, left the 
room. 

In the hall he met McCormick, parading about 
in starched-bosomed geneality. “It’s to-night 
you show us,” he reminded. 

“I’ll ‘show you’ all right,” quoted Carrington, 
as he brushed past. There was a queer light in 
his grey eyes. McCormick stared reflectively 
after him. 

“I hope it hasn’t driven him to drink,” he 
mused. 

In the Grill, doubled protectingly over his af- 
ter-dinner stein, Carrington found the leader of 
the orchestra. “Fritz,” said he, “we’ve got to 
wake things up to-night.” 

“Dat’s goot,” said the man stolidly. “How 
so?” 

“With your music,” emphasized Carrington 
tersely, employing the mannerisms he had ac- 
quired but heretofore scorned to use. “Give us 
everything that’s new.” He swept his arm in- 
clusively outward. 

The waiter approached dubiously. He knew 
the man’s aversions, yet to-night he felt things 
107 


THE RETURN 

were different. Carrington caught his eye and 
ordered. 

“Himmel!” said the German, amazed at the 
fluency with which he tossed it off. Then, 
groping for an explanation for the other’s altered 
conduct, “Some one is dead, is it?” he ventured. 

“That’s it,” agreed Carrington with a queer 
smile. 

“There is money,” pressed Fritz, with com- 
araderie. Visions of future loans gave warmth 
to his glance. 

“Lots of it,” emphasized Carrington, “every- 
where.” He pushed back his chair and left them. 

“Ain’t it the little grafter, though,” confided 
the German to the waiter, as he burrowed into 
his stein. 

With a final glance at the decorations and a 
brief inspection of the floor, Carrington with- 
drew to a secluded corner and mentally rehearsed 
his new accomplishments until peremptory spurts 
of music from the room below intimated that his 
presence was necessary. 

The unaccustomed indulgence in the Grill had 
commenced to haze the reality of his surround- 
ings. He felt young, and again the music called 
to him as it had in the past. He became ready 
of speech, yet tempered with a certain reserve. 
Choosing a partner of no uncertain abilities, he 
stepped upon the floor as the music commenced. 

108 


AS YESTERDAY 


Above, in the gallery, McCormick turned to 
his wife. “Look at him,” he urged. “Shows 
what an implied ‘bounce’ will do.” 

At first Carrington danced easily and well, as 
the youth of his partner went out to him, mellow- 
ing his age. There was a sureness in his move- 
ments that drew the attention of not a few. 

The music stopped, and he escorted his part- 
ner to her friends; then turned to confront the 
proprietor’s wife. That she wanted to dance 
was unmistakable. It shone from her eyes, in 
her smile, in the eagerness with which she greeted 
him. And Carrington requested the pleasure. 

She was resplendently compressed, from the 
suffocating tightness of her corseting to her be- 
jeweled fingers. Recalling the husband’s axiom 
“that nothing was unnecessary that brought in 
the money,” Carrington smiled, a trifle grimly, 
and they stepped out upon the floor. 

The spirit proved willing but the flesh laid its 
restraint upon her movements, and Carrington 
pushed and piloted with the vim of a stevedore, 
earning the good woman’s undying gratitude. 

Silently he offered thanks to Heaven that none 
whom he knew were there to perceive his 
ignominy. He glanced toward the gallery, then 
recalled his thanks; the whole world altered, his 
brief period of stimulation passed. 

From above, with quiet level gaze, a woman 
109 


THE RETURN 


looked down upon him. He noted a blended 
speculation in her glance, a vague endeavoring 
to construct coherency from the scene beneath, 
the obvious difficulty she experienced in recon- 
ciling a Wall Street operator with a busy-body 
of the ballroom. The music stopped, a panic 
seized him, he wanted to run. Then, conquering 
the desire and assuming something of his old 
insouciance of manner, he left his partner almost 
abruptly and went directly to the woman above. 

“The next?” he requested, dispensing with all 
formality of greeting. There was defiance in his 
eyes. 

She turned slowly. “It’s still the waltz with 
me,” she reminded. 

“I’m glad,” he said, and silence settled between 
them. 

Eventually they talked, dwelling upon triviali- 
ties, each avoiding what was foremost in their 
thoughts, until at length the orchestra com- 
menced to stir. Carrington rose, wrote on the 
hack of his program, and handed it to the leader 
as he passed. 

Soon across the ballroom there commenced to 
drift the delicate, pulsing rhythm of an old 
Strauss waltz, as down the stairs, with erect dig- 
nity, came the dancing master, a quiet, sweet- 
faced woman by his side. At the foot of the 
stairs they paused. For a brief instant their 
110 


AS YESTERDAY 


eyes met, then yielding to the sway of the music 
they moved off. A moment’s hesitancy; then, 
one by one, others followed until the floor was 
crowded. 

With straight-limbed dignity Carrington cir- 
cled the room. He and his partner were in per- 
fect accord. Soon the music ceased. There 
came a brief patter of applause, and again they 
moved on until the foot of the stairs was reached. 

“Come,” said the woman softly. She led him 
to the little parlor of her suite, where he sank 
wearily to a chair. Briefly she hesitated, longing 
to spare him, wishing for some means to sustain 
his pretence; then — 

“Tell me,” she urged. 

“My Wall Street was a lie,” he said simply. 

“But why,” she questioned, without surprise, 
“all these years? Was it fair to me? Wouldn’t 
I have understood?” 

“You would have,” he admitted with the wan 
despondency of a tired child. Then, facing her: 
“At first I met with a few small reverses and 
lied. When things got worse, I lied more, and, 
before I knew it, the whole thing had grown 
until it owned me.” 

“If only you had told me,” said she at length. 
“Poverty would have meant nothing against all 
these empty years.” 

He sat without replying, his lean shoulders 
111 


THE RETURN 


reaching forward in the shabby dress-suit, the 
tiredness of his face accentuated by the stenciled 
lines of care. Yet, because he had always 
shunned the realities, something boyish still clung 
to him. 

But to-night life was closing in. The facts of 
existence reached out to him, as, from beneath, 
the muffled music of the ballroom pulsed leadenly 
upward, adding a swaying discord to his 
thoughts. 

Eventually the woman rose and, passing over, 
stood behind him. Bending, she gently placed 
her hands upon his brow. The old, familiar atti- 
tude, the well-remembered coolness of her touch 
soothed him, and gradually he poured out the 
sordid little story, sparing himself no detail. 

“How much longer would it all have lasted if 
I had not come?” she asked at length. 

He reached to the recesses of a pocket, then 
extended the letter written that evening. 

She seated herself by his side, and, as she read, 
a soft glow shadowed her face. 

“You were coming home?” 

He bowed his head. 

For the last time, the music below died slowly 
away. Footsteps passed the door, then again, 
quiet. 

Together they rose and crossed to the open 
window. A haze of moonlight broke from be- 
112 


AS YESTERDAY 


tween drifting clouds ; through it the stucco walls 
of the hotel stood whitely forth, like those of a 
monastery. 

As they stood, from somewhere above, so softly 
that they but blended with the dreams of the 
lightest sleeper, there came the hushed, restless 
notes of a violin. They bore a witchery of long 
forgotten days, purging the present of its reality 
— and the years became as yesterday. 








* 




# 














ft 











A RACE OF TRICKSTERS 

T HE partners of Leland and Sigsmund 
were having what they chose to consider 
a business discussion. Had it occurred 
in a firm of less prestige it would in reality have 
been termed a “row.” There was, however, no 
raising of voice, shaking of fist, or exchange of 
vitriolic personality. Instead, an atmosphere of 
icy repression cloaked the whole affair and, in an 
odd way, served to intensify it. 

A momentary lull had come to the even rumble 
of their talk. From the outer office the sharp 
click of a busily plied typewriter cut in to them, 
punctuated by the occasional trill of the tele- 
phone. For a space Leland, the senior of the 
two partners, toyed with a bronze paper-weight 
and stared concentratedly from the high window 
over the lower roof tops to the river beyond. Ap- 
parently he was giving all of his attention to a 
thin cirrus-line of smoke that trailed astern of a 
rapidly moving tug. Eventually he swung 
about. 

“I’d be glad to buy you out, Sigsmund,” he 
resumed. 

“Probably you would,” the other agreed, with 
115 


THE RETURN 


a satirical contraction of his straight lips. The 
flat-pinched nostrils of his big, inquisitive nose 
twitched belligerently. “But why should I sell? 
The profits are fair and the business is growing.” 

“Because,” said Leland abruptly, “we’ll never 
agree as to the type of clientele you’re bringing 
to this office. That’s one reason.” 

“And the other is, I suppose, my nationality?” 

“Hardly that,” Leland denied. “I flatter my- 
self I’m too broad-minded to reproach you on 
such a score. It’s not so much your nationality 
as the crowd you’re running with. They’re rap- 
idly coming into disrepute. Again, that paper 
of yours prints things I don’t much care for.” 

“You are a censor, perhaps?” 

“To return to my offer,” Leland went on, 
ignoring the other’s sarcasm, “I’ll sell my interest 
at face, or give you a substantial bonus for yours. 
If you buy, however, of course my name leaves 
the firm.” 

“Our partnership has three years more to run,” 
reminded Sigsmund. “Besides I have done 
nothing which would cause the courts to release 
you from the agreement. So I am afraid it will 
have to stand, however little you may enjoy the 
association.” He rose with smiling insolence. 
“Is there anything else you care to discuss, my 
dear Leland?” 


116 


A RACE OF TRICKSTERS 


“Not for to-day. Just keep considering my 
offer, however.” 

“I will, but most unfavorably.” Turning, 
Sigsmund stalked from the room, his jaunty, 
high-shouldered, important walk emphasized by 
a slight swagger. 

After he had left, Leland sat reflectively 
studying the backs of his slightly aging hands, 
where the skin bagged at the knuckles. Step by 
step he retraced his years of association with the 
other. There had been little of friendship to it. 
Rather a mutual need each for the other’s capital, 
which, when combined, was then just sufficient to 
purchase a seat on the exchange and tide them 
over the first few difficult months. In all those 
years they had seen practically nothing of each 
other, except during business hours. 

Reviewed in a candid light it had really been 
Leland’s friends and business associates who had 
made the firm what it was to-day. Yet there was 
enough of the “for better or for worse” in his 
business make-up to have restrained him from 
any thought of dissolving the partnership, were 
it not for other contributing reasons. There had 
seemed something “shady,” as it were, about 
Sigsmund of late; nothing tangible perhaps — 
just the unpleasant suggestion of a sub-current; 
here an act, there an omission. A but half-con- 
117 


THE RETURN 

cealed atmosphere of elation when the daily news 
was bad. 

Then there was that paper of his, run by subor- 
dinates, but under Sigsmund’s direction. True, 
they never said anything quite openly, but some 
one on the staff had a truly wonderful genius for 
mangling the news. As for their editorials, they 
might mean anything according to the interpreta- 
tions of the reader. He’d like to get hold of that 
sheet, run it himself, then through its columns 
insult the luke-warm patriots who read it. Sigs- 
mund’s friends, too, were not above reproach, he 
recalled — a long-haired, weedy-looking crowd. 
And of late they had developed the habit of play- 
ing the market through Sigsmund, cluttering up 
the office as they consulted with him about their 
scantily margined little flyers, hitched to the tail 
of war orders. He even suspected Sigsmund 
himself of taking occasional plunges, though 
there had been a definite understanding when 
they joined forces that neither was to speculate. 
Twice had the man come to him, rather hurriedly, 
for temporary loans. Still, the courts did not 
deal in suspicions or intuitions, however definite 
they might be. He would have to let things drift 
for a time, he supposed, though Sigsmund’s 
crowd was driving away some of their best cus- 
tomers, who, apparently, did not care for the 
rather Bohemian atmosphere the firm was devel- 
118 


A RACE OF TRICKSTERS 


oping. If the man had possessed the most trivial 
sense of decency he would have accepted at least 
one end of his recent offer, Leland irritably con- 
cluded — then temporarily dismissed the subject. 

Some mornings later, Clayton, Leland’s sec- 
retary, brought him a card. It was sulphur-yel- 
low with age and roughened where soiled spots 
had been erased. “Nathaniel Doran,” it an- 
nounced, in the shaded etching of a past genera- 
tion. There was something about it that took 
Leland back, though the name was unfamiliar to 
him. Somehow the little strip of pasteboard 
caught him as a breath of heliotrope from among 
the love letters of an old beau. 

“Did he happen to say what he wanted, Clay- 
ton?” 

“He insisted on speaking with you per- 
sonally,” replied the secretary, a small, salt-and- 
pepper-looking man, with the wistfully pleasant 
expression of one who has for years attempted to 
convey optimism without cause. 

“Show him in,” conceded Leland, after a mo- 
ment’s hesitation. 

It was against his custom to receive visitors 
off-hand, particularly of late, since Sigsmund’s 
crowd had commenced to infest the office. Yet 
there was something appealing and dignified to 
the little card that won its bearer unquestioned 
admission. After the secretary had left Leland 
119 


THE RETURN 


sat idly, mentally imaging the type of man it im- 
plied — a pastime he occasionally allowed himself 
when business was not pressing. 

Apparently the card heralded one of the “old 
gentlemen of the black stock” variety, he con- 
cluded. Some one tall, lean, white-haired and 
esthetic, with courtly manners and clear-cut 
enunciation. The latter, if correct, would prove 
a decided relief in these days of mumbled speech. 
Yet such a man would hardly play the market. 
What could he want? Perhaps he was some dis- 
tant connection of his, he reflected, and searched 
in vain the archives of his relatives for the name 
of Nathaniel Doran. 

A long, firm step shortly sounded from the 
outer office, seconded by the nimble patter of 
Clayton, the secretary. Then a tall, powerful, 
slightly underfed young man passed into the 
room. His face was lean and perceptive; only a 
muscular neck saved him from an Adam’s apple. 
He wore a dark blue serge, the ostensible prod- 
uct of an unscrupulous firm that did not figure 
on repeat orders, and it fitted him accordingly. 

“Mr. Leland?” he questioned tentatively, and, 
on one point at least, the other found himself 
right — the voice was slow and careful. 

“Yes,” he acknowledged, a trifle stiffly, his eyes 
passing appraisingly from the card he still held 
to the young man so contrary to it. The visitor 
120 


A RACE OF TRICKSTERS 


caught the glance of comparison: “I’m afraid I 
don’t quite check up to that, do I?” There was 
a hint of a smile on his firm but delicately cut 
mouth. 

“No,” said Leland pointedly, “you don’t. Is 
it yours?” 

“In a sense,” admitted the other, “that is, I in- 
herited it. It was grandfather’s. Our names are 
the same.” 

Without quite knowing why, Leland was be- 
coming rapidly irritated ; he commenced to speak, 
but the other forestalled him. 

“You see, I’ve wanted to meet you for quite a 
time, Mr. Leland, but you’re reputed to be rather 
exclusive and I couldn’t think of any good way 
that would assure my seeing you. Then one day 
in an old trunk I ran across that card. It lay 
between a moth-eaten frockcoat and a muffler 
wrapped about a wig. And as I looked at it, it 
sort of suggested the courtly old gentleman who 
could go anywhere and be well received. From 
what I hear, grandfather was that sort, though, 
of course, one’s family is always biased. Still, it 
seemed a way, so I threw up my job and came on 
— grandfather would have said ‘resigned my 
position,’ from what I hear.” 

“And what was this ‘job’ you so hastily dis- 
carded?” Leland’s voice was cold. It was only 
that the young man’s semi-foolish line of talk 
121 


THE RETURN 


somehow interested him, in spite of himself, that 
he permitted him to linger. 

“School teacher,” supplied Doran. “Braining 
children, they call it in Morleyville. They hate 
to learn, as much as one dislikes teaching them.” 

“Well, now that you are here,” suggested Ice- 
land abruptly, “what can I do for you?” 

“Give me some kind of a position, if you will. 
Any old thing, at first; I don’t care much what 
it is.” 

“You may not know it,” said Leland, “but 
your method of approach has hardly inspired me 
with confidence. Besides, what caused you to 
gather the impression that I was in need of add- 
ing to my already ample force? And, if such a 
need existed, do you imagine I would fill it with 
a young man who presents a card he admittedly 
imagines will create a false impression?” 

“The point is,” said Doran, “I am prepared to 
offer you a rather unique sort of service — at 
times, that is,” he added nervously. 

“Indeed?” Leland’s voice was very dry and 
skeptical. “Just what is that service?” He had 
about decided the tall young man was some sort 
of a crank, perhaps slightly deranged, and was 
casting about for a means, short of violence, for 
terminating the interview. Doran’s next remark 
crystallized the conviction. 

“I can,” he said, seating himself, “quite fre- 
122 


A RACE OF TRICKSTERS 

quently, at times, predict how the market is go- 
ing. And when I do, I am never wrong.” 

“Truly marvelous,” said Leland with abundant 
irony. Secretly he was wondering just how soon 
his powerful-looking visitor would throw a fit, 
and how many of the clerks it would require to 
subdue him. “You must be very wealthy, with 
such an unusual ability,” he continued, humor- 
ingly. “I’m afraid that any salary I could offer 
you would appear most trivial.” 

At this the young man smiled, showing an ex- 
cellent set of teeth. There was something whim- 
sical and spontaneous to the short laugh that 
followed. 

“Of course, you think I’m a little off in the 
head,” he ventured. “It’s only natural you 
should. I stated my case rather poorly. As for 
your remark about the great wealth I must en- 
joy, let me say that I’ve never as yet had a 
‘hunch’ when I’ve had a cent to speculate with. 
They only come when I’m more or less down and 
out, so to speak. Even when some one offers to 
split with me, if I hit it right, my ‘knack’ seems to 
freeze up.” 

“Partially accepting your assurance that 
you’re not mentally unsound,” said Leland 
slowly, “of what practical value are these — er — 
intuitions, shall we call them, that you mention? 
You can’t actualize upon them yourself, you say, 
123 


THE RETURN 


or offer them to others when you are to be the 
gainer in any way?” 

“It’s just this,” said Doran. “I’m tired of 
teaching school. I want to break away and get 
near the heart of things. If I get in some little 
shyster’s office, they will everlastingly bother me 
for tips, until nothing will come but wild guesses, 
and then I’ll dry up. While if some firm of your 
type takes me on (as I’ve said, the salary’s no 
object so long as it’s livable) , I can, from time to 
time, point out something worth while.” 

Beneath the absolute foolishness of what Do- 
ran was suggesting Leland sensed a trace of ap- 
parent sincerity. The fellow’s face, too, im- 
pressed him as more or less candid. His eyes 
were grey, direct, frank, and open. Still a fair 
and beguiling countenance was, as a rule, the 
rogue’s first stock in trade. Leland recalled him- 
self shortly. Doran was again speaking. 

“I’m afraid, Mr. Leland, I’ve in a way hurt 
my chances with you by claiming what sounds 
like the impossible. Probably I’ve forced you to 
conclude I’m a bit demented or a wholesale liar.” 

“Yes, and no,” said Leland judicially. “In a 
sense, your contentions aren’t as novel as you 
seem to think. It comes to me that there was 
another fellow — Kitchin, I think his name was — 
who used to hang out in New Street. He also 
implied he could dope out the market intuitively. 

124 


A RACE OF TRICKSTERS 


He even for a time got out a little daily sheet of 
his predictions. Often he wasn’t far off. I recall 
several instances when he hit it right, even while 
flying in the face of all conservative opinion. 

“But, like all the rest, he soon blew up. It was 
after he commenced raising the price of his serv- 
ices. Suddenly his predictions became sketchy 
and vague. The last of his reports that I chanced 
to read was nothing but an echo of the more con- 
servative financial sheets, plus an occasional wild 
salting from his imagination.” 

“That’s it,” cut in Doran. “You see, in raising 
his price he tried to make a killing indirectly for 
himself. Probably at first he had to about give 
away his predictions. When he tried to cash in, 
he lost the knack. Doesn’t that check up with 
what I’ve just said?” 

“Um,” Leland grudged, half amused at the 
whimsical interest the other was stirring in him. 
“By the way,” he questioned, “how do you know 
when you’ve picked a winner? Any particular 
symptoms — trances, dizzy spells, fits, or anything 
like that?” 

“Not exactly,” smiled Doran. “I never know 
when I’m going to. It happens any old time, 
usually when I’m mulling over the market re- 
ports rather carelessly, not thinking of anything 
much in particular. Suddenly one of the quota- 
tions seems to stand out clearer than the rest, 
125 


THE RETURN 


almost as if the print were larger and darker.” 

“Do you drink?” asked Leland pointedly. 

“Never,” said Doran simply. Again that 
wholesome smile showed on his clearly cut lips. 
“I’m glad, though, you told me about that 
Kitchin fellow,” he went on. “It makes what 
I’ve just said sound less inane. The only way I 
can describe it is by asking how, at times, in an 
apparently empty room, a man gets a feeling 
that some one is watching him, then looks about, 
and sees some one there.” 

“How many of theses — er — visions glorious 
could you guarantee me per year if I took you 
up and gave you a try?” said Leland at length. 
The business man in him was clamoring to reduce 
the thing to a mathematical, common-sense basis. 
Besides, he wished to inveigle the other into con- 
tradicting himself. 

“Absolutely none. If my position were de- 
pendent on the tips I could hand out they would 
fail me. As I’ve said, even if there was some 
fifty-fifty agreement between us, I couldn’t see 
things clearly. I expect nothing; in fact, 
wouldn’t accept a cent, no matter how much you 
cleaned up. All I want is some livable salary 
that I can earn through legitimate services. Any 
dope I can send your way is gratis, as it were. I 
simply want to be near the market, where I can 
get things straight, not through the bucket shop 
126 


A RACE OF TRICKSTERS 


at Morleyville. It's just that the whole thing 
interests me more than anything else in the 
world,” he finished tensely. 

“When I was a kid,” said Leland reminis- 
cently, “I had one great weakness. It was for 
side shows. When the circus came to town, if I 
didn’t have much cash I’d skip the main show 
and take in what was going on in the little tents. 
I knew they were nothing but freaks and fakes, 
yet I couldn’t keep away. I always had an over- 
powering desire to give the tattoed man a bath to 
see just how many of his illustrations would wash 
off. What I’m coming at is this: Frankly, I 
regard you as either a freak or a fake and, to 
prove I’m right, I want to give you a commercial 
bath for my own satisfaction. For that pleasure 
I’m willing to pay you a very small salary which 
you can possibly earn. I’ll employ you for a 
time at, say, fifteen dollars a week. All your hal- 
lucinations in regard to the trend of the market 
are for me alone. None of my employees are 
supposed to speculate and I don’t want them to. 
Can you afford to accept?” 

“Can I live here on that amount?” 

“It will just about mean a plain, old-fashioned 
existence.” 

“Then I take you up and thank you for the 
chance.” 

“Very well. I suppose you will want a week’s 
127 


THE RETURN 


advance ?” Leland added. He was trying hard to 
find a trace of the mercenary in the other. 

“Thanks, no. IVe a few dollars left from my 
trip. That will carry me, I guess. When will 
I report?” 

“To-morrow will be time enough,” Leland as- 
sured. His eyes, still skeptical, were apprais- 
ingly upon the other, who had risen. “I want it 
understood,” he added, “that none of us here 
speculate. I’m merely taking you on to see what 
you can do. So you needn’t be nervous as to any 
of your dope letting me in for anything, if it 
chances to be wrong. Good morning.” 

“I’m as crazy as he is, I believe,” Leland mut- 
tered when the other had left. “But it will be 
interesting, no matter how it turns out. And fif- 
teen dollars for a few weeks isn’t much to pay for 
a little amusement.” 

Leland had just returned from lunch when an 
operator in the outer office announced that a 
Nathaniel Doran was on the ’phone. 

“Put him through,” he directed, expecting to 
hear that the other had reconsidered his offer. A 
moment later he caught Doran’s voice upon the 
wire. 

“Mr. Leland? This you personally? I’ve just 
had one of my intuitions, as you call them. 
It’s — ” Here he named a rather shaky indus- 
trial. “Looks like a big jump,” he added. “I 
128 


A RACE OF TRICKSTERS 

don’t ask you to play it, just keep watch and see 
if it doesn’t climb.” 

“Thanks,” accepted Leland sarcastically. “The 
corporation you mention is facing bankruptcy, 
but for the sake of the side shows of my youth I’ll 
follow you.” 

“I’m afraid Doran’s first fruit from the tree of 
knowledge will prove a lemon,” he reflected, as 
he hung up. “But what do I expect anyhow?” 

Four days later Doran’s industrial had merged 
with another and stronger corporation and was 
up ten points. Doran himself brought the news, 
brushing unceremoniously into the inner office. 
He was as flushed and pleased as some school 
boy who had bluffed through an examination. 

“Good guess,” said Leland dryly. “How did 
you find out there was going to be a merger?” 

“I didn’t know there had been.” Doran’s sur- 
prise seemed real. “I never follow the business 
end of the different offerings. It only confuses 
me, gets me to trying to dope things out on my 
own hook, and usually ends in a fizzle.” 

“Really?” Leland’s voice was noncommittal, 
to say the least. 

Frequently, but without regularity, in the 
weeks that followed, Doran presented himself in 
Leland’s inner office and offered his predictions. 
Invariably they were correct. A rise or a decline 
in their quotations always followed, though once 
129 


THE RETURN 


as many as ten days elapsed before any substan- 
tial change was recorded by the ticker. Some of 
his selections were from stocks obviously due for 
a jump, but the remaining were culled from con- 
servative, old-line investments, little given to 
fluctuation. Two of them were, by common re- 
port, regarded as financial dead ones. Another 
was a supposedly played-out copper property; a 
fourth, a bone-dry oil company. Yet each of 
them rallied and did its little stunt. 

Leland was struck by one peculiarity in par- 
ticular. The other’s predictions had absolutely 
no bearing upon the intrinsic worth of the offer- 
ings. They merely concerned themselves with 
the fact that a stock was due for a rise or a fall. 
There might be nothing behind the jump but a 
little wind, plus a clever bit of manipulation. 
Often the stock fell again within the week. 

There was nothing of the financier to the man, 
Leland decided. The condition of a plant, its 
labor problems and possible avenues of develop- 
ment, were all untouched lore, as far as he was 
concerned. In fact, he appeared only courte- 
ously interested when Leland discussed these as- 
pects with him. His financial outlook was nar- 
row in the extreme. Once let Leland outline the 
potentialities of a security to him, once make 
clear its inward workings, and that stock would 
become, for some time, a dead letter to him. Un- 
130 


A RACE OF TRICKSTERS 

til the conditions had changed he had no pre- 
dictions to offer concerning it. 

“I’m really in a devil-and-a-deep-sea sort of 
box,” Doran one day explained. He and Leland 
were discussing this particular aspect of his pre- 
dictions. They had become more friendly of late. 
Leland was not entirely proof against the other’s 
unstudied magnetism, once he had decided he 
was not the complete faker he had at first sup- 
posed him. 

“I really close my ears as much as possible to 
all current reports,” Doran went on. “As soon 
as I have material to think with I try to dope 
things out along reasonable mathematical lines, 
then my knack, or whatever it is, leaves me. As 
I can’t use it for my own profit and can’t learn 
finance in general without losing it, I’m in a bad 
way for ever getting anywhere. At times I 
think I’ll cut loose from all this guess work, get 
a grounding of some sort, and try and work up 
into something legitimate. Yet a fellow hates 
to let go of anything so fascinating as being able 
to know in advance what every other fellow 
wishes he knew.” 

As, in a way, she concerns this story, it should 
have been mentioned that Leland had a daughter, 
a very attractive one at that. Her name was An- 
gela. Occasionally she came to the office, visited 
131 


THE RETURN 

with her father, disturbed things generally, and 
then left. 

She had noticed Doran for the first time 
shortly after he had commenced his rather trivial 
duties with Leland and Sigsmund. 

“Who is that new man, papa?” she asked the 
same evening at the close of dinner. “The one 
with the desk by the door. The tall, dark, rather 
good-looking one.” 

Leland hesitated momentarily; then, with a 
trace of embarrassment, he told her how he had 
come to employ him. The recital seemed rather 
to catch the girl’s romantic fancy. 

“How strange!” she said. “And has he really 
made good?” 

“Everything he’s predicted has worked out so 
far,” admitted Leland, somehow relieved by An- 
gela’s credulity. “But don’t repeat any of this. 
I’d be the laughing-stock of the exchange if it 
ever got out. Every little shyster in town would 
flock to the office to wring tips from him. We 
wouldn’t have a respectable customer left. Sigs- 
mund’s crowd are bad enough without bringing 
in any more ringers.” 

“You still feel the same about Mr. Sigsmund?” 
she eventually questioned. In her voice was a 
peculiar note. 

“The same and more so,” snapped Leland. 
“I’d move heaven and earth to get that man out, 
132 


A RACE OF TRICKSTERS 

but he’s refused every reasonable offer. The first 
thing you know he’ll land in some sort of a scrape 
that will reflect on the firm. That paper of his 
is a disgrace to the community!” 

“Aren’t you a little hard on him?” suggested 
Angela. “Isn’t it just possible that you’ve been 
together so long that you’ve sort of got on each 
other’s nerves? He’s very attentive when I come 
to the office,” she added irrelevantly. 

“Read some of the editorials in his paper,” 
grumbled Leland testily. “If you’ve any sense 
at all, they’ll show you what I mean.” 

“I think you’re awfully cross to-night,” she 
said, seating herself on the arm of his chair and 
running her slim hand musingly through his hair. 
Her gaze was speculative and far off. 

“But I won’t say anything about Mr. Doran 
if you don’t want me to,” she reverted at length. 
“I wish you’d ask him up for dinner, though, 
some night. I’d like to meet him. What you tell 
me all sounds so weird. Almost like a fairy 
story.” 

“Why that, Angela?” Leland demurred. 
“Aren’t there enough fellows uptown? I don’t 
know a thing about him. He may be a sharper 
or worse.” 

“I don’t think he is,” she said. “Anyhow, you 
could find out by writing to some of the ministers 
at Morleyville. Ministers always know every- 
133 


THE RETURN 


thing about everybody. I’ll go away now and let 
you read your paper, if you’ll promise to invite 
him.” 

“All right, all right,” Leland agreed, sug- 
gestively fingering the evening news, “next week, 
perhaps.” 

As time went on Angela and Doran came to 
see considerable of each other. She was anxious, 
so she said, for him to become more familiar with 
New York and its suburbs. One couldn’t really 
like a place until one knew something about it. 
Her little roadster proved a very convenient ve- 
hicle of tuition and before long Doran had 
learned to run it. This allowed Angela to call 
him up when she didn’t feel quite like driving 
herself, which was often. She was doing consid- 
erable work for the Red Cross — usually after 
three o’clock — and eventually Doran became her 
rather frequent chauffeur. 

“Father tells me you’ve a wonderful ability for 
forecasting the stock market,” she broached one 
day. They were spinning easily through Scars- 
dale over a good strip of road. 

“A ‘knack’ would be the better word,” he re- 
plied. “Ability implies something acquired and 
I just sort of stumbled on to this.” 

For a time she was silent, then: “It seems too 
bad you can’t derive any benefit through it for 
yourself. As it is, it all leads you nowhere, or so 
134 


A RACE OF TRICKSTERS 


father says.” In her voice was an interest, almost 
personal it seemed. 

“It is rather a blind alley,” he agreed. “Eve 
worried a good deal about it since — er — of late, 
that is.” He flushed slightly as he slowed down 
and changed gears unnecessarily. For a time he 
purposely avoided looking at her. 

“What do you think of Mr. Sigsmund?” she 
questioned next, as though anxious to change the 
subject. 

“Not much,” said Doran hesitantly. “To me 
he seems rather a slippery sort. Why?” 

“Oh, I just wondered,” she returned evasively. 
“Suppose we run home now; it’s getting rather 
late.” Doran thought he sensed a coolness (or 
nervousness, was it?) in her tones. Could it be 
that she cared for Sigsmund, he wondered irrit- 
ably. The man had the reputation of being some- 
what of a lady’s man at the office. Perhaps he 
had been rather hasty with his criticisms, he re- 
flected. After all, it wasn’t exactly his function 
to pass on the merits of his employers, though 
Leland had given him to understand that he was 
more or less directly engaged by him. 

On a certain drab, cloudy afternoon Angela 
was having tea at the Plaza with Sigsmund. It 
was all of a month since Doran had expressed his 
rather uncomplimentary opinion of the man. 
But, judging from the intimate tete-a-tete they 
135 


THE RETURN 

were having, his remarks had not biased Angela 
in any way. 

She was pouring Sigsmund’s tea with that 
subtle implication of cosy domesticity that some 
women are born with and which others acquire. 
The cream and sugar she added with unquestion- 
ing accuracy. Evidently she knew his taste in 
these matters. Apparently this was not the first 
time they had thus enjoyed each other’s society. 
As for Sigsmund, his eyes seldom left her face, 
and then only to stray to her delicate, fluttering 
hands. He was past master of the unspoken com- 
pliment, and he knew it. 

“Once I imagined that I was satisfied with ex- 
istence,” he voiced reflectively at length. “But 
now that you have come into my life I realize 
what a dreary waste the years have been. I was 
but half awake; now my every faculty is alive,” 
he finished with studied effulgence. 

“I’m glad I mean so much to you,” Angela 
accepted simply. “It seems odd in a way, it all 
came to both of us so suddenly.” 

“Like a ray of moonlight on a lonely road,” 
symbolized Sigsmund. “And it saved us from 
losing each other in life’s shadows.” He paused 
impressively and passed his cup for more tea. 
The crumpets were delicious. He was already 
consecrating himself to the sixth. The girl threw 
him a little smile, her candid eyes level upon his. 

136 


A RACE OF TRICKSTERS 


“How oddly the fates bestow their gifts,” 
Sigsmund resumed. “They have given us love 
in abundance, yet they are only passably gen- 
erous with wealth. And, now that I have you to 
shower it upon, money means much more to me.” 

“It is a convenient thing to have,” Angela 
agreed. “And I’m afraid I’ve rather expensive 
tastes,” she added apologetically. “By the way,” 
with apparent irrelevance, “have you chanced to 
notice Mr. Doran, that new man in the office?” 

“Only to reflect that we did not need him. The 
force was large enough before he came. Why?” 

“Did it ever occur to you that perhaps father 
had some special reason for employing him?” 

“No,” admitted Sigsmund, blinking rapidly 
with interest. “How do you mean?” 

“I can count on you to keep a secret?” Lightly 
her warm little palm brushed his hand, then she 
withdrew it. 

“Of course. Need you ask? A confidence be- 
tween us is sacred.” 

She appeared to hesitate, which only increased 
his curiosity. “Your secret,” he urged. “You 
will tell it to me?” 

“Father employs him,” she said with seeming 
reluctance, “because he has some kind of an odd, 
intuitive faculty that at times allows him to pre- 
dict whether certain stocks will rise or fall.” 

“Absolutely impossible,” exclaimed Sigsmund. 

137 


THE RETURN 


“Again, why should such a man remain a clerk?” 

“That’s the queer part. If he’s to be the 
gainer in any way, his suggestions are valueless.” 

“My dear Angela, this is preposterous.” 

“I thought so myself, at first,” she admitted. 
“But he’s been rather attentive of late and I en- 
couraged him in it. All the while I’ve been mak- 
ing him talk about himself and incidentally the 
market. He rather enjoys showing off, it seems, 
and he gave me a lot of tips — just in a spirit of 
fun, you know. I’ve kept track of them and 
what he’s said has never failed to happen. Here’s 
a partial list,” and she drew a little slip from her 
knitting bag. 

As he read it, Sigsmund’s sharp eyebrows 
worked like two incredulous worms upon his high, 
narrow brow. “Gott,” he said softly, “do you 
realize what this would mean if it were so? Your 
father would be many times a millionaire.” 

“I don’t believe he’s ever speculated,” replied 
Angela. “Not even once.” 

“What makes you think that? It would be 
madness not to. Did he tell you so?” 

“No. But he’s got some old-fashioned idea 
that a broker should never enter the market.” In 
her voice was subtile complaint. 

“Perhaps you and I are not so hampered with 
scruples?” suggested Sigsmund brightly. 

Again her hand rested for the briefest of 
138 


A RACE OF TRICKSTERS 


moments on his arm. Then, with a little pres- 
sure, she withdrew it. “Doran has just told me 
that steel will drop heavily within the next few 
days,” she intimated. “We might watch it, at 
least.” 

“My dear little woman, you are truly wonder- 
ful,” he cried. 

“But you haven’t got the capital to do any- 
thing really big with,” she reminded. “And if 
we are to leave for Switzerland, it must be soon. 
Some day father will discover how much we mean 
to each other. And you know how he disap- 
proves of you. Oh, I wish I were of age! Then 
I could let you have the money grandma left 
me.” 

“A way will suggest itself, if Doran’s predic- 
tions continue to fulfil themselves,” Sigsmund 
assured. “You must see much of him and let me 
know. In the meantime I will watch steel.” 

About the middle of the following week the 
’phone rang for Angela. It was Sigsmund. 
“Meet me at the Plaza in half an hour,” he 
directed. His voice was vibrant. He was still 
visibly agitated when later she joined him in the 
lobby. 

“Himmel,” he said in confidential excitement. 
“You should have seen the exchange. Doran 
was right, though all indications were against 
139 


THE RETURN 


him. Money, quantities of it, was lost and 
made,” he slowly added. 

She nodded, smiling softly. “He’s always 
right. That is, when he predicts at all. He has 
to wait till he gets what he calls a ‘hunch’ 
though.” 

“Yes, yes, I know,” Sigsmund assured. “I 
looked into that sort of thing more thoroughly. 
He’s a type of ‘tipster.’ They appear occasion- 
ally, but their ability does not last. What more 
has he told you?” 

“Nothing as yet, but he’s calling to-night. I’ll 
see you at the same time to-morrow.” 

Doran appeared unusually tired that evening. 
He was uncommunicative and a bit blue. 

“What’s the matter?” inquired Angela, when, 
for the second time, he had lost the thread of 
what she was saying. “You seem out of sorts?” 

“I’m sorry to be such a slow coach,” he apolo- 
gized. “It’s that I’ve something on my mind. 
Your father has just offered to raise my salary.” 

“That wouldn’t worry the average man.” 

“No, probably not. But he implied I was be- 
coming useful to him, in a general way, and that 
other increases might follow.” 

“Well, what of it? If you don’t want it you 
can give it away, though I should imagine you’d 
be able to spend it. You might send me some 
140 


A RACE OF TRICKSTERS 

flowers if you can’t think of any other way,” she 
finished, laughing. 

He smiled slightly and shook his head. “It’s 
not that,” he said. “The point is, I can’t tell 
just how much of a raise I can stand without loos- 
ing my ‘knack.’ An uncle left me a thousand 
dollars once, and I never had a single hunch till 
it was gone.” 

“I see,” she said reflectively. “That would be 
too bad.” 

Suddenly Doran bent close to her. “If I 
thought,” he said, “that if in time I came to 
amount to something, something really legiti- 
mate, that there would be a chance that you could 
care?” he broke off, his dark eyes frankly upon 
hers. 

“Please don’t, not now,” she entreated. 

“All right,” he said, rising. “I don’t blame 
you. I know I had no right to speak — I haven’t 
much to offer and yet ” 

“Yes?” she urged in soft contradiction. 

“Well, I lied to your father, in a way, when 
I told him why it was his firm in particular I 
wanted to enter. It wasn’t altogether because 
he was so conservative and all that — there are 
others, you know. It was because ” 

“Go on,” she urged. 

“Well, because I’d seen your pictures in the 
papers. I used to cut them out and save them 
141 


THE RETURN 


all. I’ve a little book nearly full of them,” he 
smiled in whimsical recollection. And there was 
something in the expression of your eyes that 
sort of got to me and made me feel that the 
fellow you cared for would be awfully lucky. 
Then, when at first you were so sort of — er — 
friendly, that is, things seemed almost possible.” 

She rose and stood close to him. “I wouldn’t 
lose faith in my intuitions too soon,” she said. 
“Please don’t go yet, sit down and talk to me. 
I’m lonely to-night. Tell me about your latest 
predictions. What is going up next?” 

Again he seated himself at her side and leaned 
forward, clasping his large tense hands about 
his knee. “Do you really mean — ” he com- 
menced. 

“I don’t mean anything just yet, except that 
I want you to stay with me very much and come 
to see me very often.” 

By degrees she skillfully swung the conversa- 
tion about until again she had him talking of 
the market. As ever, he became absorbed in 
what he was saying. And by the time he had 
left he had shed himself of his usual quota of 
advice. 

In the weeks that followed Angela was very 
cordial and receptive with him. As for Doran, 
he was a man and in love, which brings him under 
rather a general heading. And all the while she 
142 


A RACE OF TRICKSTERS 


kept a list of his opinions concerning the market, 
which later she gave to Sigsmund and never once 
were they at fault. At last even the German’s 
ample fund of caution commenced to give 
way. 

“We must soon put it to the touch,” he said 
to Angela one day. They were again seated at 
tea. His eyes were intently upon her. His mind 
was equally intent on a rather embarrassing in- 
terview with a certain government official which 
had occurred the previous day. The man had 
seemed unduly interested in how Sigsmund’s 
paper paid its way. There was so little adver- 
tising and so many of its subscriptions were in 
arrears. Possibly there was some hidden source 
of income, the official had implied. If the past 
financing of that paper were to be fully investi- 
gated, Sigsmund sensibly doubted if he would 
ever be allowed to reach even Switzerland. 

“It is certain you can touch none of your 
money,” he suggested, recalling himself. 

“I only wish I could,” she replied, devotion in 
her glance. “But it’s all in trust in father’s care. 
I can’t have a penny outright for over a year.” 

“Poor little girl,” he said whimsically. “Dam- 
nation,” he reflected to himself. The time was 
getting short. 

“Can’t you do something soon?” she pleaded. 

143 


THE RETURN 


“Mr. Doran is getting rather insistent; he tried 
to kiss me last night.” 

“We must,” agreed Sigsmund, a glint of 
jealous anger indiis eyes. “Had he any further 
predictions to offer?” 

“There was steel again. He says it is due for 
a sharp rise.” 

Sigsmund’s glance brightened. After all, if 
he realized on everything he could plunge rather 
heavily. He need pay little attention to margins 
if he waited till the second day. There was never 
much fluctuation after that. 

“What is it?” cried Angela excitedly. “You 
are going to do something at last. I can tell it; 
your face looks so strong.” 

“You are right, my dear,” he said, beaming 
down at her. “If no other way suggests itself, I 
shall borrow what I can on my assets. The 
chances of loss are small. Doran’s accuracy has 
never failed — not once in all these weeks.” 

“I feel almost wicked to suggest it,” said 
Angela. “But there is papa. He might lend 
you on your share of the partnership. You know 
he told me recently that he would move heaven 
and earth to get you out. Probably he would 
offer you more than any one else. In a way, it’s 
the safest course, too. For even if Doran was 
wrong and you lost, I could make papa give it 
all back to you after the war, when he gets 
144 


A RACE OF TRICKSTERS 


through being angry. And he can’t keep it up 
forever, once we’re married.” 

“I had thought of that,” said Sigsmund in- 
genuously. “It seems the best way.” 

“Even if he didn’t come round, I will have all 
that money from grandma next year, and what is 
mine is yours, dear. You know that.” She bent 
close to him, very alluring in a simple little after- 
noon gown. From beneath a most becoming hat 
the waves of her luxuriant hair threw soft-toned 
shadows about her piquant face. 

“You are perfect, my little woman,” he 
breathed deeply. “We shall be most happy to- 
gether. It will be a paradise. I’ll see your father 
to-morrow and ’phone you the result.” 

“Call up about eleven,” she said. “There will 
be no one home then but the servants.” 

It was fifteen minutes to twelve the following 
day before Angela heard from him. 

“Would he do it?” she cried, forestalling him 
in her excitement. 

“I have it; a certified check,” he answered. 
“At first he refused. Insisted on buying out- 
right. But, when I offered my paper as addi- 
tional security, he finally accepted. Probably, 
as it is, he feels I may not be able to repay him 
at the time agreed upon.” 

“I’m so glad,” she almost whispered. “And, 
oh, I do hope things will go all right — that you 
145 


THE RETURN 


will have the luck you so deserve! I’m terribly 
nervous. Let me know as soon as you can.” 

Shortly after, Angela let the receiver drop to 
its hook. Her hand was trembling badly. 

Sigsmund stood before a tall waste basket into 
which the ticker, with slow precision, was drool- 
ing its daily portion of narrow-ribboned paper. 
At length, after a little pause, came the closing 
words “good-night,” after which the machine 
ebbed to silence. Still he stood. A subtile dif- 
ference had come into his narrow, jaunty back. 
It was now eloquent with depression. 

Finally he turned and reached gropingly for 
his hat. As he did so his glance fell abstractedly 
to the telephone on the desk. After a moment’s 
thought he sank to a chair before it, hesitated 
reflectively, took up the receiver and gave a num- 
ber. As he waited, he mentally composed his 
voice to the proper despondent timbre. For 
Sigsmund was acute enough to realize the appeal 
of a beaten man to the woman who cares. At 
last there came a faint click, followed by a soft- 
voiced “hello.” 

“Angela, my dear, this is your Sigsmund. We 
are beaten, my little woman; steel has dropped 
badly. We now have nothing left but our love.” 
He paused; a low, rippling laugh resounded 
along the wire. With an impatient finger he 
146 


A RACE OF TRICKSTERS 


irritably poked the little arm of the receiver. 
“Central, central,” he snapped, “some one else is 
on the line. I shall report this to headquarters.” 

“Really, you mustn’t blame central.” 

It was Angela’s voice he recognized. “There 
has been no mistake, unless it is the one you made 
in thinking I could care for a man whose paper 
was so horribly unpatriotic, so treasonable, 
almost. As for steel, I purposely gave you 
Doran’s tip wrong.” 

“Angela!” Incredulous rage was in his voice. 

“Really, Mr. Sigsmund, I must say good-by. 
I have a dinner engagement with Mr. Doran, 
but,” and here her voice became very cool and 
clear, “again allow me to wish you the luck you 
so deserve.” 

For a long time Sigsmund sat without mov- 
ing. In reality a bit too lean for apoplexy, he 
was nevertheless experiencing some of its symp- 
toms. A door opened and softly closed, but ap- 
parently he did not hear it. A moment later, a 
firm, rather proprietory hand, was laid upon his 
shoulder. 

“You’re wanted at headquarters, Sigsmund,” 
said the somewhat familiar voice of the govern- 
ment official. “Better come quietly, hadn’t you? 
The weather’s rather warm for a rough-house.” 

Some weeks later Sigsmund sat upon a sandy 
knoll, breathing without apparent appreciation 
147 


THE RETURN 


the “salubrious” air of the Georgia pines. It 
was a remote and quiet little Valhalla he was 
sharing with some others of his race. The view 
of the surrounding country was extensive and 
spacious, were it not for a jumble of barbed wire 
which intervened. An armed sentry gave a 
touch of security to the scene. 

For something like the fifth time Sigsmund 
picked up a rather stale newspaper and referred 
to its society column. Again he reread the para- 
graph which dealt with the marriage of Angela 
Leland to Nathaniel Doran, allowing his eyes to 
linger on the candid, smiling face of the girl. 
Judging from his expression he had no urgent 
desire to kiss the bride. 

Eventually a tall, awkward, highly nourished 
Von Tirpitz sort of an individual wandered near, 
and paused at his side. 

“Come, come, Sigsmund,” he chanted in a 
deep, bass voice, “take it not too hard. The food 
is excellent, everything considered; on the whole 
they treat us rather well.” 

Sigsmund let the paper fall to the ground. 
For a moment he busied himself with viciously 
flipping two clambering ants from the leg of his 
trousers. Finally he glanced up. 

“They are a race of tricksters,” he said, in an 
unreconciled voice. Stiffly rising, he wandered 
off. 


148 


A RACE OF TRICKSTERS 


As for Doran, Leland eventually offered him 
an interest in the firm. From the day he ac- 
cepted he lost his knack of prediction. But then, 
he now has Angela to console him. 


THE MAN HE MIGHT 
HAVE BEEN 

I T was on the Mexican border that I noticed 
him for the first time — a lean, tan, fero- 
ciously sullen-appearing fellow with an un- 
naturally bright and blue eye. The mess called 
him Moses, a trifle sacrilegiously perhaps, but 
not entirely without cause, for it was held that 
in the absence of liquor he could, if it were neces- 
sary and he were thirsty enough, smite a rock 
and produce it. Though I never entirely ac- 
cepted this theory, yet it was certain that the 
man possessed a truly wonderful genius for dis- 
covering the whereabouts of alcohol in any form. 

Wendell was his real name, and there were 
rumors that he had come of rather a good family. 
But when the same was once intimated to him, 
his profanity would have excused the thought, 
were it not for his hands, which were very much 
the gentleman’s and carefully cared for. 

Except for his weakness and his talent for 
gratifying it, there was apparently little of in- 
terest to him, after one had become accustomed 
to his lean face thrust belligerently against the 
bars of the guard house, where he spent the 
151 


THE RETURN 


greater part of his time. After these frequent 
committals he would sleep for an hour or so, 
then approach the small window and break into 
song — usually “Home, Sweet Home” (mean- 
ing, I suppose, that he felt more at home where 
he was than at large) . After the first few notes, 
which were generally horrible to an extreme, his 
voice would gradually clear and settle. And be- 
fore he finished he would be singing melodiously, 
with a technique that implied careful training. 

Wendell had about settled into that category 
usually known as “camp freaks” when he pulled 
the most amazing stunt of all his repertoire, For 
a week we had been playing tail to Villa’s kite, 
always, it seemed, about a day’s ride behind. It 
was a most ungodly and deserted country 
through which we were passing — the sun strokes 
of scorching afternoons rapidly giving way to 
the chills of frigid nights. Occasionally we 
would have a light skirmish with a rear guard of 
so-called Villa men, though there was a piebald 
pony, with a marked shoulder lameness, that I 
distinctly remembered as part of a Carranza 
outfit. The rather loose discipline of the Mexi- 
cans in general probably allowed them to fight 
where the fighting was good and to draw what 
pay there was to be had from either side. 

To get back to Wendell: For several days the 
man had been absolutely sober. There was noth- 
152 


THE MAN HE MIGHT HAVE BEEN 


ing extraordinary to that, as even our water sup- 
ply was at times scant. The country was un- 
usually desolate, not even a rancho to break the 
baked-out monotony. It was the seventh morn- 
ing, and we had just finished breakfast when I 
noticed one of our scouts, an Indian, talking with 
the Captain. Soon there followed the order to 
about face and back for the border. Though 
somewhat disappointed at not having caught up 
with Villa, we were on the whole glad enough to 
return and lost little time in preparing to obey. 

About five minutes before starting some one 
announced that Wendell was missing. The re- 
port had scarcely become current when he ap- 
peared over the crown of a low, sandy hill, sway- 
ing in the saddle and unmistakably drunk. 
Carefully he rode into line and sat, glum and 
sullen, gazing straight ahead. I saw the Cap- 
tain’s eye kindle with anger; then, as if the farce 
of it all had suddenly reached him, his lip 
twitched and, wheeling, he abruptly faced the 
other way. 

There was some logical explanation to Wen- 
dell’s feat, of course, though we never really 
found out how he managed it. To begin with, 
he denied to the very steps of the guard house 
that he’d been drunk; said it was the air that 
made him dizzy. That didn’t explain his very 
definite breath, however, nor the fact that when 
153 


THE RETURN 


it became warmer and he commenced to perspire, 
he soon straightened up. 

The escapade gave him a certain prestige that 
everlastingly cemented to him the name of 
Moses. And after all it was something of a 
stunt for a man to leave his well-nigh waterless 
and provisionless troop and return in a few hours 
with an unmistakable edge. 

A few weeks later I was furloughed home be- 
cause of an attack of inflammatory rheumatism, 
which seemed more serious than it later proved. 
While waiting for my papers I chanced to be 
strolling past the guard house, when the low voice 
of the sentry addressed me. 

“Better stick around a minute,” he said. “It’s 
worth while. Old Moses has learned to talk 
Mexican.” 

As he spoke, a swaying chant came drifting 
out from behind the window bars. Slowly it rose 
and fell. It was in Latin and well rendered, the 
articulation clear to an extreme. Finally it died 
away, and Wendell commenced a little speech, 
in excellent German this time. It had to do with 
the Divine Rights of Kings and was cleverly 
cloaked in irony. Shortly after, the orderly sum- 
moned me. And the last I heard of Wendell for 
some months was his voice, fine and true as a 
bell, urging all who listened to “Lead, kindly 
light, amid the encircling gloom.” 

154 


THE MAN HE MIGHT HAVE BEEN 


Returning to New York I spent the ensuing 
months in trying to gather up the loose ends of 
my business, which had rather gone to pieces. 
Things were in a horrible muddle, and, just as 
they were shaping themselves again, our little 
argument with Germany developed. As our 
regiment was already on the way home I felt we 
would be among the first to go, so I pocketed 
my loss and closed up the old office for good. 
Frankly, the indoor life had seemed a bit stuffy 
after a time, and I wasn’t particularly sorry when 
I found myself on a transport headed for France, 
though financially I was done for — temporarily, 
at least. 

The second night out I saw a man coming 
towards me from the shadows of the forward 
deck. There was something familiar in his walk, 
or stagger to be more exact, and I waited in the 
radius of an overhead light for him to draw 
near. At a distance he paused and, for a mo- 
ment, I was conscious of a pair of glinting eyes 
surveying me steadily. Just as I had recognized 
him for Wendell, he turned, without change of 
expression, and, avoiding the light, passed by. 

I saw little or nothing of him during the re- 
mainder of the trip. He was under restraint 
most of the time. Heaven only knows where 
he got hold of his supply — possibly from the 
stokers, for he seemed to see considerable of 
155 


THE RETURN 


them whenever they came up for air. There 
was something whole-souled and dramatic in the 
way he consumed it that caused whoever had a 
drop to share it with him, despite the fact that 
he was not over-popular. Many of us won- 
dered why he was not eventually discharged 
from the service as a detriment to the morale. 
But they kept him on, perhaps because of his 
courage, which was exceptional, or in considera- 
tion of the fact that at times he proved such a 
universally handy man. 

I recall one day in particular, when our wire- 
less was performing badly. The chief elec- 
trician had mulled over it for hours with only 
temporary results. Somehow Wendell got wind 
of the mix-up, lounged into the room, and 
stood leaning moodily against the wall, looking 
on. At length, brushing roughly past the others, 
he bent above the plant. For a few minutes he 
tinkered away, then, with a grunt, walked off; 
and when again they tried it, it worked per- 
fectly. 

Eventually we landed, without so much as 
sighting a submarine, and went into camp. After 
what seemed like a lifetime of training they 
gave us a small, unimportant slice of the front 
to hold. The Germans in the opposing terri- 
tory were a farce. Our glasses showed us noth- 
ing but boys and almost old men — the very 
156 


THE MAN HE MIGHT HAVE BEEN 


scrapings of their army, I should say. Evi- 
dently their regard for us was not over-compli- 
mentary. But after a week or so, when our 
artillery had peppered them rather accurately 
once or twice, we got word from our rear that 
the old man’s club opposed to us was being re- 
lieved by seasoned troops. 

The following night things suddenly became 
interesting. It seemed that every gun in the 
German army was raining lead upon us, and 
shortly our trench caved in as snow slides off a 
roof. Then some one, perhaps our officer, gave 
the word to retreat. Most of the line obeyed 
— all but a little pocket of us, who were cur- 
tained off by a barrage directly at our rear. We 
couldn’t go back and there was no use in going 
forward so we stayed where we were and blazed 
away at a shadowy cloud of Huns that were 
rolling down upon us. They poured into our 
trench like a wet blanket descending on a 
smoldering fire, and we were prisoners, about 
a dozen of us in all — Wendell among the rest. 

After they had coralled us in a little group, 
they looked us over curiously, laughed a great 
deal, then hurried us off in a motor truck for 
the rear. Later we were packed into a shed, 
where they left us till morning. 

The following day we were taken out, two or 
three at a time, until Wendell and I alone re- 
157 


THE RETURN 

mained. It seemed but natural under the cir- 
cumstances to make some remark, yet he sat 
sullen and forbidding as ever, abstractedly draw- 
ing lines in the dirt of the floor with a stub of 
stick. Finally two soldiers came and motioned 
us to follow. A walk of about ten minutes 
brought us to a tent in which sat an officer be- 
hind a frail, portable table. 

He was a long-drawn-out, delicate-looking fel- 
low, with abnormally lean and hollow cheeks 
and an unpleasant, fixed sneer. For a moment 
he regarded us silently, then addressed us, to my 
surprise, in excellent English, or American, to 
be more exact. 

“We have two methods of treating our pris- 
oners,’’ he said. “It is at times up to them which 
one we employ.” 

He paused and ran his eye from Wendell to 
me, then back again. There was something 
oddly familiar in the man’s face. I could have 
sworn I had seen him before. Vaguely I com- 
menced to associate him with a necktie I had 
once bought on lower Fifth Avenue. 

“The idea is this,” he finally went on. “There 
is some information that we are mildly interested 
in. We really have the facts; it’s simply a cor- 
roboration of them we want, and certain favors 
will be shown the prisoners who prove most 
158 


THE MAN HE MIGHT HAVE BEEN 


helpful. Liars, of course, will be harshly dealt 
with.” 

Guardedly I glanced at Wendell. He stood 
squarely on both feet, his head slightly to one 
side; on his straight, full lips was as near a smile 
as he ever allowed himself. His belligerent eyes 
were intent upon the lean officer. 

Briefly the man studied a narrow strip of 
paper, while he toyed with a fountain pen; then, 
as though taking for granted our willingness to 
win his protection, he again looked up. 

“To begin with,” he commenced categorically, 
“you are using the French artillery. About 
when do you expect your own? — Well?” he 
urged. Evidently he was addressing me. 

“I don’t recall having heard the matter dis- 
cussed,” I replied. At this, two lines of color 
came to life along his lean cheeks, but for the 
moment he held himself in. 

“Your canned goods,” he presented next. 
“Surely you recall the trade names on the tins?” 

“I’m afraid not,” I answered, civilly enough. 
I couldn’t exactly see that the latter question was 
important, but evidently it was, or he wouldn’t 
have asked it. Even as I spoke, the trade mark 
on our meat tins had occurred to me, for I had 
been using one to store tobacco in, with a slice 
of potato to keep it moist. 

159 


THE RETURN 


“Apparently you intend no assistance,” he 
remarked coldly. 

“It was careless of me not to have noticed,” I 
answered noncommittally. 

“Very,” he agreed, “as you will shortly dis- 
cover.” Then, swinging sharply to Wendell: 
“How about you, my man? Is your memory in 
better working order?” 

At the “my man” I could see Wendell writhe 
with rage. He hated patronage in any form, 
German patronage in particular. 

“Come, come, speak up,” prodded the officer, 
as he appeared to hesitate. 

“Suppose you go to Hell,” invited Wendell 
with that studied drawl to which he relapsed at 
times. 

Surprised as I was at the needless provoca- 
tion of the remark, I was still more surprised at 
the repressed way the officer received it. He 
rose slowly to his feet, walked over to Wendell, 
and stood for a moment studying him closely. 
Briefly they had it out, eye to eye ; then, turning, 
the officer passed through the entrance of the 
tent. For a moment he spoke in low tones with 
his orderly. Shortly he reentered and resumed 
his seat behind the table. The moments dragged 
by, and still he sat, his gaze steadily upon Wen- 
dell. There was something mathematical in the 
cold scrutiny of it. Evidently he had been able 
160 


THE MAN HE MIGHT HAVE BEEN 


to wring nothing from the others or he would 
not have wasted further time on us. 

Eventually the orderly returned; in his hand 
was a small package, wrapped in newspapers. 
He placed it carefully on the table before the 
officer, then withdrew, and again took his stand 
outside. 

With slow fingers the officer broke the string 
that held the package, an inscrutable half -smile 
on his lips. Vaguely, as one notices trifling de- 
tails at tense moments, my attention clung to his 
mouth, which was far too small for a man’s. His 
whole face struck me as delicate and intuitive as 
a woman’s, in spite of its unpleasant expression. 
With lingering fingers he stripped off the paper, 
drew out a flat flask of about a pint’s contents, 
and stood it upright on the table before him. 

“Brandy,” he said simply, his glance full upon 
Wendell. 

At this the tension seemed to treble. Then 
from Wendell came a long, catching sigh, fol- 
lowed by a twitch of the shoulders. 

“Good brandy,” the officer went on at length; 
“the best.” As he spoke he slipped off the metal 
cup of the flask, unscrewed the cork and splashed 
out a small quantity. For a moment he sniffed 
at it appraisingly, then — it seemed purposely — 
he spilled it on the table. 

Though I had never particularly cared for 
161 


THE RETURN 


Wendell, for once his face struck me as some- 
how pathetic. All the fight was gone from his 
eyes. They were dull and longing as a hungry 
dog’s. His nostrils were alternately filling and 
flattening, as the faint aroma of the brandy 
drifted across the hot interior of the tent. His 
mouth, now the sullenness had left it, was piti- 
ably weak. 

“It goes,” said the officer, thoughtfully indi- 
cating the flask, “to the man with the best 
memory.” 

Apparently he was addressing us both, yet I 
knew his remark was intended solely for Wen- 
dell. He even threw me a brief, unpleasant 
smile, as though inviting me to share in the 
humor of the situation or pay tribute to his in- 
sight in so quickly fathoming the other’s weak- 
ness. 

Then Wendell broke loose. He talked rapidly, 
disjointedly. “We were using the French artil- 
lery because they had more than enough and 
were saving our own.” As for the canned goods 
he furnished name upon name, none of which I, 
or any one else, had ever heard of. 

The officer, who had been attentively listening, 
finally cut in, “All lies,” he said. “Try again.” 
As he spoke he poured another little jet from 
the flask and sipped tentatively at it. 

The crisis had come and I knew it. For days 
162 


THE MAN HE MIGHT HAVE BEEN 

Wendell had been without a drop. The rigid 
discipline of trench life had proved too much for 
even his genius to solve. He was dry and 
shaken to the bone. One could almost fancy his 
baked-out, tortured nerves crawling beneath his 
lean skin, as his tongue, red and sharp, darted 
rapidly from corner to corner of his drawn lips. 
An occasional tremor shook his knees, causing 
them to quiver as no danger had ever done. 

I tore my attention away and looked over to 
the officer. Clearly the man was enjoying him- 
self to the utmost. Sedulously he kept silent, 
probably feeling that no urging of his could 
equal the eloquent appeal of that flask, upon 
which the other’s eyes were riveted unswervingly. 
Something told me Wendell was losing out, and 
rapidly at that. Then God, or Fate, or what 
you will, for the moment intervened. Across the 
silence of the tent came a guttural voice, address- 
ing the orderly outside. The first sentence I 
missed, but caught the reply. 

“In a moment,” he said. “He is questioning 
the” — here he cleared his throat and spit con- 
temptuously — “the dirty American schwein- 
hunds,” he finished. 

At this a chemic change seemed to pass over 
Wendell. The tremor left his knees, his legs 
stiffened tautly. The whipped-dog look slowly 
faded from his eyes as he drew himself more 
163 


THE RETURN 


erect. A trace of odd refinement had come 
into his face. When finally he spoke, it was 
again in that even, well-articulated drawl. 

“I have nothing to say,” he said simply. 

The officer quickly caught the change. 
“Wait,” he commanded, “let us put it differ- 
ently.” Then, as he laid his automatic next the 
bottle on the table: “Choose,” he said. 

“I have,” returned Wendell conclusively, and 
it was good to see the “fight” rush back into his 
face. Once more his eyes were blazing with their 
old-time, belligerent ferociousness, and I knew 
that from somewhere within him he had come 
upon that elusive shadow — the shadow of the 
man he might have been. 

White with rage, the officer rose abruptly. 
“In exchange for your recent ‘go to Hell,’ allow 
me to present you with this,” he remarked, and 
seizing his automatic from the table he aimed, 
carefully low, then fired twice. And Wendell 
sank slowly down, his knee caps badly shattered. 

There is more to the story, one way or an- 
other, but, as some of it doesn’t directly concern 
Wendell, perhaps that part should be passed 
over lightly. Before long, with the assistance of 
a little German tailor, I escaped. He was, by 
the way, a Socialist, whom father had once 
helped to a start in business back in New York. 

Eventually I reached our lines, but the ex- 
164 


THE MAN HE MIGHT HAVE BEEN 


posure and heavy rains had been too much. I 
was again almost a helpless cripple from rheu- 
matism. And, when, finally, I failed to im- 
prove, I was sent home to help out with the re- 
cruiting. 

On a warm night, some months later, I wan- 
dered into Madison Square and relaxed care- 
fully to a bench. For the first time in weeks I 
felt somewhat better. It may have been the 
dry pavements under foot or the mild spring 
air. Anyhow, I allowed my cramped muscles 
the luxury of a slight stretch and found that I 
could stand for it. The end of the park in which 
I was seated was unusually quiet. Occasional 
automobiles spinning past on the smooth asphalt 
and the distant clang of cars on the Twenty- 
Third Street line were all that broke the still- 
ness. Now and then a faint breeze stirred the 
dust-laden leaves overhead. 

As I sat, a man hobbled past. There was 
something familiar to the set of the shoulders 
and the carriage of his head that drew my atten- 
tion, then he had passed on. Strangely curious, 
I rose and followed. As we neared Fifth Avenue 
several squads of marines swung into view, mov- 
ing rapidly down town. At sight of them, those 
familiar shoulders ahead of me straightened a 
bit, but soon slumped again. Then it was I 
drew up and saw, as I had half suspected, that 
165 


THE RETURN 


it was Wendell. He appeared horribly dilapi- 
dated. There was something furtive about him, 
too, that I had never before connected with him 
and he was shaking badly. The tremors had 
him at last, it seemed. 

A miniature crowd quickly collected from no- 
where, as crowds will, when anything resembling 
troops are on the march. Briefly they all jostled 
for place, then spread out along the curb. A 
fat and pompous little man with an unusually 
attractive woman on his arm drew near, and 
paused. I saw Wendell turn and glance back 
at them. Then he stepped aside and offered the 
woman his place, which she took without even 
a “thank you.” But evidently a “thank you” 
was not what he had in mind, for soon he hur- 
ried off, something tightly clasped in his hand. 
A moment later I saw the fat man make as if 
to consult his watch, but it was gone. 

Without waiting to hear his rage, which, 
though justifiable, was somehow comic, I made 
after Wendell. He was streaking toward 
Seventh Avenue with amazing rapidity consider- 
ing his lameness. 

“Just a minute,” I called after he had 
crossed Broadway. But he hurried on, pretend- 
ing not to hear. Then, as I called again, he 
grudgingly slackened his pace and turned 
slowly about. Never have I seen such a change 
166 


THE MAN HE MIGHT HAVE BEEN 


in a man. Dirty, befuddled, shaken, all that 
suggestion of “fight” that had once been his 
most redeeming feature gone, he stood, present- 
ing a face utterly without possibilities. 

I was certain that he recognized me, though 
he gave no sign of it. Perhaps it was my weak- 
ened condition, but, as I looked at him, I felt 
awfully choky in the throat and moist about the 
eyes. Somehow I could not help but recall him 
as he had appeared in that hot little tent, for one 
glorious moment suave and forceful, as he con- 
quered his weakness and took the consequences. 
And now he stood, broken, trembling, at the end 
of his tether — a petty thief. There was much 
that I wanted to say, but nothing that I could. 

“What will they give you on it?” I finally 
managed. Evidently he grasped that I had seen 
him, for stiffly he opened his fingers and surveyed 
the watch. Then it was I noticed that his hands, 
too, were foul and uncared for; the worst sign 
of all, I somehow felt. 

“I dunno,” he said thickly. “Maybe ten; it’s 
worth more, but they’ll figure I stole it and hold 
me up.” 

It came rather hard just then, but I fished 
out twenty, nearly all I had at the time. Some- 
how I felt it was coming to him, if only because 
of that moment in the hot little tent back in 
Germany. 


167 


THE RETURN 


“Here,” I said, “let’s have the watch.” 

He took the bills first, with a slightly puzzled 
expression, and counted them shufflingly. As 
he clumsily thumbed them, I tried to think it 
was because of the regiment I was doing this, 
but all the time I knew it was for him. 

Again his spirit gave one of those flashes in 
the pan that made what he was all the more 
pitiable. Slowly, reluctantly he peeled off two 
fives and tendered them back. “A little off on 
your account,” he said with that echo of concise- 
ness that always came to him when he was try- 
ing to play the game. 

“I know,” I assured. “Keep it. It’s all 
right.” And the eagerness with which he with- 
drew his hand gave some hint of the effort be- 
hind the offer. 

Though I felt it was useless, I found a card, 
scribbled an address, and handed it to him. 

“If you ever think that you want to — that you 
can — pull up, this will generally reach me,” I 
said. “Perhaps I could help a bit.” He took it 
in his soiled, trembling hand, without so much 
as glancing at it. 

Then, though I knew he hated questions, 
“How is it you’re back?” I asked. 

“Too lame to work or fight, so they turned me 
loose,” he answered laconically. “Food was 
scarce.” 


168 


THE MAN HE MIGHT HAVE BEEN 


He was getting restless and I saw it. The 
money in his pocket was calling to him. Sud- 
denly with a muttered “thanks, old man,” he 
turned and hobbled off. 

For a time I stood looking after him. Half 
way down the street he paused at an ash tin, 
tore my card to bits, then limped on. Gradually 
his weakened body, that held so much that was 
fine with so much that was vile, lost itself beneath 
the shadows of the elevated road. And some- 
thing tells me I shall not see him again. 



























I 



















% 

















































V ■ 



















































































NEXT 



HE dinner was fine,” said the boy with 
emphasis, “and now for the talk.” 


JL He was not really a boy, but there 
remained enough color in his face and enough 
optimism in his philosophy of life to justify the 
word. 

The man smiled appreciatively; evidently he 
was used to the other’s anticipating him. 

“It’s a poor way to spoil an evening, Billy,” 
he admitted, “but your mother and father both 
insisted I was to be your guardian, so I’m afraid 
you’ll have to stand the consequences.” There 
was something vaguely apologetic in his manner, 
as though he found it difficult to bridge the dif- 
ference in their years, particularly as the bearer 
of admonitions. 

Young Kingsbury flushed with momentary 
embarrassment. “I know how it is, Colonel 
Palmer,” he condoned, “and it’s more than kind 
of you to want to take the trouble.” 

They were dining on the roof of a fashionable 
club. Below them lay New York, wrapped in a 
pearl-gray mist, through which struggled the 
globe-shaped lights of Fifth Avenue. An oc- 


171 


THE RETURN 


casional breeze from the Jersey hills, that wafted 
gently the awnings above them, was somehow 
suggestive of pastures and green trees. 

“Now that you’ve finished college, what were 
you planning to do?” questioned the man irrel- 
evantly. 

Kingsbury greeted the inquiry with a glance of 
poorly concealed relief. 

“Real estate,” he replied. “I know a good 
many people, and about the kind of places they 
want, and already things are shaping out rather 
well.” 

Something akin to disappointment momentar- 
ily tinged the man’s features. “Don’t you find 
the work rather confining?” he suggested at 
random. 

“Why, no,” the other smiled, “most of my 
friends have automobiles, and, as they are chiefly 
interested in suburban property, it keeps me out 
the better part of the day.” 

The Colonel nodded comprehendingly. As he 
regretted the months that had elapsed since the 
boy’s graduation, his tired, rather dissipated face 
assumed an expression of anxiety. “If you 
hadn’t already become established, or had any 
doubt as to your present work’s continuing to 
prove agreeable, I had rather an unusual propo- 
sition to offer.” Then, beginning with the strong- 
est point, he stated the salary. 

172 


NEXT 


Young Kingsbury’s eyes went wide, even as 
he whistled softly. “That is ‘big money,’ ” he 
declared. 

“Of course, there are drawbacks,” the Colonel 
advised. “You would have to spend most of the 
time in South America for the next few years.” 

“Yes, I know,” agreed Kingsbury dubiously, 
then lapsed into silence, as for a space the two 
studied the table cloth. The breeze from the hills 
gradually died down, as the stale air of the city 
rose upward, enveloping them, and to the 
younger of the two men it was good; while the 
lights, glowing below like balls of dull fire, held 
a promise. Suddenly he glanced up and in his 
candid eyes was an acumen which served to 
heighten the resemblance to his mother. The 
man caught the look and moved uncomfortably, 
partly through a sense of neglected responsibility 
and partly through a presentiment of what was 
to follow. 

“I can’t understand that salary,” stated the 
boy, “it’s out of all proportion to the services re- 
quired. Even the necessity of going to South 
America doesn’t explain it.” 

“They want a college graduate, some one who 
can grow with the business,” evaded the man, 
commencing to wish he had been more circum- 
spect in regard to the remuneration. 

“Even so — ” insisted the other, still unsatis- 
173 


THE RETURN 


fled. Then, “Who owns this business?” he 
asked at length, a suggestion of a smile in his 
eyes. Colonel Palmer’s face became a shade 
redder as he replied, “I do.” 

Finally young Kingsbury spoke. “Just why 
do you want me to leave town?” he asked, point- 
edly, and, discarding all subterfuge, Colonel 
Palmer told him. 

“She’s not your sort,” he concluded; then 
added, “And think how your mother would feel.” 

It was the boy’s turn to color. “If Mother 
could have known her as I do, she would agree 
with me,” he defended. Then, petulantly, “I 
can’t understand that prejudice against actresses. 
They’re very much like the rest of the world, 
even a little better, I should say, considering 
their temptations.” 

The Colonel moved uncomfortably as he com- 
menced to realize the amount of tact his mission 
promised to require. He wished, helplessly, that 
he knew some woman whom he could enlist to 
assume the responsibility in his stead. State- 
ments from one sex concerning the other are apt 
to ring harshly, he reflected, while a woman could 
imply so much. He found himself in a difficult 
position, the situation demanding that he cast 
reflections upon a woman that another man 
loved, without giving offense. He longed to 
shirk the task, and only a very clear remem- 
174 


NEXT 


brance of a promise made to a pale-faced little 
woman, whom he had once taken the liberty of 
secretly loving, even after she had married a 
friend of his, impelled him to persist. 

“Your mother had such hopes for you,” he 
pressed. 

“And how could I fulfil them better than by 
marrying a woman with brains, talent, and am- 
bition? I couldn’t stand being tied to one of 
those little gad-abouts that never have an idea 
beyond the newest thing in dances and the latest 
cut in clothes.” 

“They are not that way after you marry 
them,” contended the man. “If they love you, 
they change. It’s only because they haven’t any- 
thing substantial to interest them.” In some in- 
definable way he felt he was getting beyond his 
depth; he hoped the boy would agree with him, 
but he knew he would not. 

“You mean they become your echo and bore 
you accordingly,” scoffed the other. Evidently, 
in opinions at least, he was less the boy than the 
Colonel had supposed. Then in a burst of en- 
thusiasm, “I wish you could meet her, though; 
you would soon see what I mean about her being 
different.” 

For an instant the Colonel reflected. Then, 
“I’d like to,” he agreed. 

This pleased the boy immensely. “That will be 
175 


THE RETURN 


fine,” he enthused. “Say when, and I’ll give a 
little dinner. I know you will like her.” 

The man’s eyes became very kind as they 
rested upon the flushed, impetuous face opposite 
him. 

“You must promise me one thing,” Kingsbury 
continued, “that you won’t be prejudiced by any- 
thing you hear about town. You know it’s im- 
possible for a woman to become a success with- 
out there being talk. There’s too much envy in 
the world to allow of that.” 

“Agreed,” said the other. “How about Sat- 
urday?” 

“That will do splendidly; we can take in a 
cabaret afterwards.” 

A whimsical smile creased the corners of the 
man’s mouth. “We’re never too old to learn,” 
he admitted. Shortly afterwards they rose and 
entered the elevator and for the rest of the even- 
ing dismissed the subject by mutual consent, 
joining the others in the pool room below. 

“He’s a nice old fellow,” reflected the boy, 
somewhat later, as he walked off down the ave- 
nue, “but awfully behind the times.” 

— While from his chair in the club window the 
man thought of the boy’s mother, and then of the 
boy, as he murmured, “Poor kid!” 

The dinner was a success. Well-spoken and 
well-read, the woman combined intellectual and 
176 


NEXT 


physical attraction to an extent that fully ex- 
plained the boy’s infatuation. She seemed rather 
young to have gone so far in her calling, almost 
too young to have arrived by legitimate means; 
yet as he talked with her the man understood her 
appeal. Her personality throbbed with vitality, 
her enthusiasm seemed intact, as though life was 
still a great, unexplored mystery. Or perhaps, 
he surmised, she had taken it so lightly that all 
things still retained their novelty. 

As she emerged from the cloak room to join 
them, she gave the impression of a well-corseted 
savage who had fallen into the hands of an irre- 
proachable modiste. Thick coils of jet black hair 
piled low upon her brow gave emphasis to the 
attraction of her blue-gray eyes, while her mouth 
suggested, yet failed to betray, sensuousness. 

“Colonel Palmer,” she greeted, “Billy has so 
often spoken of you.” At which Billy flushed, 
for he had done nothing of the kind. 

During the dinner she had maintained a well- 
bred decorum, occasionally rewarding the boy’s 
adoring glances with responsive little smiles, and, 
as minutely as he scrutinized her, the Colonel 
found her obviously irreproachable. 

The dinner over, she had suggested that they 
relinquish the idea of a cabaret and come to her 
apartment instead. Perhaps here, the man re- 
flected, he would find what he sought, but, to his 
177 


THE RETURN 


surprise, even the maid proved exact. The even- 
ing passed pleasantly by, and, though hesitating 
to admit it, the Colonel enjoyed himself consid- 
erably in excess of his anticipations. She kept 
the conversation well within his grasp, showing 
a familiarity with former celebrities that pleased 
and entertained him, and upon his departure in- 
vited him to come and see her again. 

“Well?” said Billy when they had reached the 
street. 

“She is most unusual,” replied the man, which 
was equivocal to say the least. 

But apparently it satisfied the boy. “I knew 
you would like her,” he assured, “she is the dear- 
est girl in all the world.” 

“So others have found her,” reflected the Colo- 
nel, but, being a past master in the waiting game, 
said nothing. 

Occasionally, at the club, however, he would 
introduce the name of Miss Loraine, then listen 
with well-concealed avidity to the various com- 
ments it called forth, which somehow failed to 
reconcile with what he had seen of her. 

“One killed himself, and there are others, God 
knows where,” said Ransom, explicitly frank as 
usual. A statement which caused the Colonel’s 
heart to contract violently, as he inquired, “Isn’t 
that, a good deal, just talk?” 

“If you had known them as I did, you wouldn’t 
178 


NEXT 


think so,” assured Ransom. “Her only God is 
money.” This Colonel Palmer remembered, 
among other things worth while. 

A week later he availed himself of her invita- 
tion to call, omitting to mention his contemplated 
visit to the boy, whom he had seen only that after- 
noon. And the woman, being all things to all 
men, somewhat dropped her pose of the pre- 
ceding evening. 

“I thought you had forgotten me,” she com- 
plained. 

It was a long time since the Colonel had been 
called upon to make reply to such a statement, 
but, memory serving, he assured her that only 
the most pressing business could have detained 
him. 

“You men think of nothing but business,” she 
accused, “you never seem to take a day off for 
play.” 

“But who wants to play with an old man? I 
would only bore myself and every one else,” he 
ventured dejectedly. At which Miss Loraine, 
who had carefully investigated his financial 
standing, commanded him not to be foolish, and 
went on to explain how preferable was the so- 
ciety of a man of years and discretion to that of 
a raw youth. 

Apparently there was little to be gained by 
verbal fencing, and, perceiving this, the Colonel, 
179 


THE RETURN 

with an impatient little motion, came straight to 
the point. 

“Miss Loraine,” he demanded, “are you very 
much in love with Billy?” 

Evidently the question, fraught with potenti- 
alities as it was, put the woman on her guard. 
“Why do you ask?” she questioned, her eyes full 
upon him, her tones sedulously noncommittal. 

“Because,” he replied, “I am very fond of the 
boy.” 

She hesitated a minute. Then, “Yes,” she said, 
“I do love him.” 

“How much?” 

“Isn’t your question rather juvenile?” she re- 
torted; “that is, unless you have discovered some 
method of computing love.” 

“I have,” he assured. 

“You interest me; how do you go about it?” 

“By asking if you love him enough to give 
him up.” 

Her eyes opened wide with surprise. “I’m 
afraid I don’t quite comprehend your meaning. 
Why should I give him up because I happen to 
love him; is that usual?” 

“Miss Loraine,” said the man, “I don’t wish 
to appear intrusive, but are there not certain 
incidents in your career which, were they to be- 
come known, would cause both you and him con- 
siderable unhappiness?” 

180 


NEXT 


As she caught his meaning, her face flamed a 
dull, angry red that somehow became her. 

“I have had to fight for my place in the world, 
if that is what you mean, and some of the ob- 
stacles your sex have placed in the paths of suc- 
cess are costly ones to surmount.” The sem- 
blance of girlhood had vanished ; in its place was 
the alert sang froid of a woman of the world 
upon the defensive. 

“Yes, that is what I did mean,” he reluctantly 
acknowledged. “And, as you say, success is a 
costly thing these days. But do you think it quite 
fair that Billy should have to foot the bills?” 

She laughed a dry little laugh that contrasted 
strangely with the glowing warmth of her fea- 
tures. 

“Some .one always has to pay,” she assured; 
“why not he as well as another?” 

“Because you love him,” reminded the man. 

“That’s right,” said she insolently. “I had 
forgotten. But since you seem so well posted 
regarding my shortcomings, doubtless you can 
fling your knowledge into the breach and save 
him from such contamination as you yourself do 
not appear to have escaped.” She accompanied 
the remark with an inclusive glance at his dis- 
sipated features. 

“I might, but he wouldn’t believe me. His 
faith in you is too great.” 

181 


THE RETURN 


She greeted the admission with surprise. 
“Then what are you going to do about it?” she 
inquired. 

“We’ll think of some way out,” he assured, 
assuming her collaboration. “As they used to 
say when I was a kid, ‘if you can’t have that, 
what do you want next?' ” 

The woman laughed in spite of herself. There 
was something attractive about this man sitting 
calmly before her, frankly implying that she had 
no right to marry his friend. A sardonic little 
smiled twisted her mouth for the moment, then 
was gone, as she said, “If I must choose, I think 
I’d like you ‘next.’ ” 

“That’s preposterous,” cried he, springing to 
his feet. 

“You’re not complimentary,” she chided. 

“I’m old enough to be your father,” he added 
disregardingly. 

A dormant sense of conflict commenced to stir 
within the woman; here was a new sensation. 
The men she had known always clamored for 
her favor, while this one did not even want her, 
which somehow gave him an added value. 

“Those are my terms,” she insisted. “You or 
he, and you must admit I’m asking very little in 
return.” 

“I’m always suspicious of bargains and cut 
rates,” he complained. Then, remembering her 
182 


NEXT 


much chronicled devotion to money, added, 
“Why don’t you put a cash value on him? Then 
we can both strike a balance easier.” 

“But why?” she exclaimed. “When with you 
I get not only a mature protector, but the cash 
value as well.” Her speech and manner were 
redolent with insolence through which struggled 
an impish humor. 

The man’s tired face became speculative. If 
there had been a greater semblance of conflict, 
he would have taken her surrender in good faith. 
As it was, he was filled with that vague mascu- 
line distrust for the easily attained, for, possess- 
ing all the uncomfortable knowledge of a man 
of the world, he had learned “to fear the Persians 
when they bore gifts.” Again he glanced at her 
impelling, desirable, red lips slightly parted, in 
her gray eyes an unfathomable look — almost a 
warning. 

“I see,” he assented unbelievingly. “How long 
may I have in which to decide?” 

“As long as you want Billy and me to play 
around together.” 

“I’ll let you know in three months,” he prom- 
ised. “Will you give me that long to put my 
house in order?” 

“You will find me waiting to claim you as my 
very own,” she countered, again the scarcely 
veiled insolence in her glance. 

183 


THE RETURN 


The man arose and approached the door. 
“Good afternoon,” he said. 

“Good-by, prospective dear,” she taunted. 
The door closed and he was gone. 

During the succeeding months Colonel Palmer 
developed unusual activity, surprising even him- 
self, and came to discover that, with proper in- 
centive, even labor may become absorbing. Even- 
tually he sent for Billy, who found him sitting 
before his fire looking very tired. 

“Sorry to keep you waiting,” he apologized, 
“but I was with May, and, as usual, time went 
faster than I realized. She has been saying some 
awfully nice things about you,” he continued. 

“Has she?” said the Colonel wonderingly. 

“Well, rather,” replied the boy. “Almost 
made me jealous,” he laughed. “Said that if she 
couldn’t have me, she thought she would like you 
for ‘next.’ You must have made good use of 
your time when you called.” There was a tinge 
of questioning to his tones. 

“I did,” admitted the other, “and there’s the 
result.” He pointed to a series of neatly written 
pages upon the table. 

“For me?” questioned the boy. 

The man nodded. “Later,” he said. “I want 
to have a talk with you first.” The boy ap- 
proached the mantle and stood leaning against it, 
184 


NEXT 


gazing into the coals beneath. His tall, healthy 
body and optimistic face personified youth. 
There was a time, the man reflected, when he too 
had — Suddenly he cut the memory short and, 
rising, approached a drawer, where, from among 
the collection of “things that should have been 
forgotten,” he drew forth a small package. Re- 
turning to the table, he carefully unwrapped it, 
then taking out a picture he handed it to the 
other. 

“Do you know him?” he questioned. The boy 
gazed interestedly. “No,” he denied, “not that I 
can remember.” 

“Rather a decent face,” suggested the man, 
“clean and all that.” 

“Very,” admitted the boy, still puzzled. 

The man produced another. 

“That’s you,” recognized Kingsbury at once. 

Hesitatingly he handed him a third, and the 
boy’s face became slightly perplexed, as he gazed 
into the features of a man of middle age where 
potentialities for good and bad were still discern- 
ible; the face of one who had not “taken his 
stand.” Blended through it were traces of the 
two previous. 

“Oh,” exclaimed the boy, reverting to the first, 
“you, when you were young! Now I recog- 
nize it.” 


185 


THE RETURN 


“Before and after,” admitted the other, with 
a dry little laugh. 

“Before and after what?” 

“The wrong woman,” the man explained. 

For an instant the boy hesitated, then rose, 
equal to the occasion. “My,” he mused softly, 
“it’s lucky I found the right one, isn’t it?” 

“But have you?” 

“I thought we had come to agree about that.” 

“Listen,” said the Colonel patiently. “I prom- 
ised to pay no attention to the inevitable talk 
concerning Miss Loraine, to discount it, as the 
toll success demands of women who succeed. But 
I did not promise to disregard facts, and, at the 
risk of terminating our friendship, I have traced 
every rumor to its source and verified it. On 
that table,” he continued, indicating it with a 
hand that slightly shook, “you will find not only 
rumors but details, facts, and dates.” He paused, 
slightly breathless, feeling in some vague way 
that his efforts had been crude, yet consoling 
himself with the reflection that he had done his 
best. 

Two red spots commenced to flame in the boy’s 
face. “What you speak of is written on that 
paper?” His voice and glance were incrimi- 
nating. 

“Yes.” 

With a rapid motion he swept the sheets into 
186 


NEXT 


his hand. “Even to read them would be an in- 
sult,” he proclaimed, rolled them into a ball, and, 
stooping, laid it upon the red surface of the 
coals. 

The man did not move. For an instant it 
smoldered, then burst into a cheery flame, which 
in less than a minute obliterated the labors of 
several months. They watched the ball of ashes 
until it broke. Then, abruptly turning, the boy 
left the room. 

Briefly, the man stood staring vacantly 
into the coals. Then, with a little shrug he fol- 
lowed. 

It was commencing to grow dark before the 
Colonel arrived at Miss Loraine’s apartment. 
Three times he passed the door, then, drawing a 
deep breath, he hurriedly entered. She was 
seated before a low fire with an assumption of 
dreamy aloofness, which for the moment she re- 
fused to discard — placid, thoughtful, apparently 
content. Something of the bitterness of defeat 
had entered the man’s soul, and, falling in with 
the occasion, he drew a chair to the hearth and 
seated himself by her side. The little clock on 
the mantle hammered out the seconds and still 
they sat without speaking. Minutes dragged by, 
neither seeming conscious of the other’s pres- 
ence. Once the woman made as if to speak, then, 
187 


THE RETURN 


apparently changing her mind, moved slightly in 
her chair, and relapsed into silence. 

Twilight deepened within the room, even as 
the man’s fancy wandered back to a long past 
day when he had paused on the verge of content. 
Into his memory crept a woman. Again she 
stood before him, with eyes pledging an unspoken 
faith, lips half formed in words of surrender. 
But the words had never come. 

“Will you have tea?” The Colonel started in- 
voluntarily. The woman by his side had spoken. 
A little smile flickered upon her lips. 

“Yes,” he accepted wearily. 

“Better take it weak,” she suggested. “You 
seem nervous.” Then, passing from point to 
point (a little way of hers) : “A penny for your 
thoughts just now, when I interrupted your 
reverie.” 

“You will have to do better than that,” he re- 
fused, coloring slightly. 

“Well, seeing you are to ‘thee and thou with 
all your worldly goods,’ so soon, suppose you 
share them with me for nothing.” 

“You certainly take things for granted,” 
stated the man. 

“Not at all; if I weren’t right, you wouldn’t be 
here now. What did Billy say when you told 
him what a hard customer you considered me?” 

The man smiled faintly. 

188 


NEXT 


“Received the tidings in a spirit of faith, hope, 
and charity. I’ll warrant,” she continued. 

“Exactly,” he assented. Then, having come to 
the end of his resource, and having nothing fur- 
ther to lose: “Even burned up my written 
proof,” he lamented. 

“And after all your efforts,” she condoned sar- 
castically. 

He glanced hastily at her. 

“From time to time reports of your industry 
have reached me through various channels,” she 
explained. 

The maid had arrived with tea, and, as the 
woman poured it, he noted the slim elegance of 
her hands and secretly admired her poise. 

“Have you broken the news to Billy?” she in- 
quired. 

“No,” he denied, “not yet.” 

“How are you going about it?” 

“I thought you might have some plan,” he sug- 
gested. Then, in a burst of intensity, leaning 
toward her, “This is on the level?” he demanded. 
“No back-sliding afterwards?” 

Her eyes met his. “Never,” she promised. 

For a while they lapsed into silence, medita- 
tively sipping their tea. 

“You asked me if I had any plan for breaking 
the news to Billy,” she mentioned at length. 

“Yes, that is going to be the hardest part of 
189 


THE RETURN 


all,” he stated, unconscious of the significance of 
his speech. A wintry little smile tinged the 
woman’s face. Then, disregarding his words, 
“I have a plan,” she admitted. 

The man turned eagerly. 

“Billy’s due here almost any minute,” she ex- 
plained. “When he arrives, do just as I tell you 
without question.” 

“But won’t you give me some idea?” he in- 
sisted. 

“Mutual confidence is the corner-stone of a 
successful marriage,” she reminded. “You must 
commence practicing it at once.” 

Far off down the hall a bell hummed gently, 
at which they both started. The room had be- 
come almost dark. 

“Before the window,” commanded the woman, 
rising. “Quick!” 

The man followed. She turned and faced him. 
“Your arms about me,” she directed. He com- 
plied, somewhat stiffly. 

“Well?” her voice contained an impatient ring. 
The man gazed down in bewilderment. 

The door at the end of the hall had opened. 

“Go on,” she pleaded in low, hurried tones. 

“Go on?” he echoed. 

Down the hallway footsteps were approaching. 

“Yes, yes, go on.” Then in a burst of exas- 
peration, “and love me. Don’t you know how?” 

190 


NEXT 


“Oh,” voiced the Colonel, comprehendingly, 
and left little to be desired. 

From the hall the boy stepped softly into the 
room. Possibly she was sleeping, he reflected. 
The fading coals from the grate vaguely illu- 
mined the vacant chairs, as rapidly his eyes be- 
came accustomed to the inner darkness. He 
glanced towards the window. In the last gray 
shadows of a winter’s twilight were two figures 
closely merged. The boy’s hand flew to the 
switch, the room became flooded with light. 

“Oh,” gasped the woman with a little start, 
“I didn’t hear you.” 

He passed her by with a glance and walked 
straight to the man. All boyishness had van- 
ished from his face. Scarcely a foot intervened 
when he paused, a twisted smile upon his hand- 
some mouth, while from beneath lowered brows, 
his mother’s eyes flashed ominously. 

For an instant he seemed speechless with rage. 
Then, “You disgusting old man!” he hurled 
forth, “you sneak — you hypocrite!” 

Briefly the man faltered under the stress of 
the other’s abuse. He made as if to speak, 
“Billy,” he said almost pleadingly. Then, with 
a sudden change of tone, “Try to be a good 
loser.” And the insolence of the remaining 
words more than obliterated his moment of 
weakness. 


191 


THE RETURN 


At this the woman laughed shrilly. 

The boy swung toward her. “I guess you are 
a pair,” he announced, and, with a very white 
and desperate look on his young face, left the 
room. 

The woman turned toward the man; into his 
tired eyes had come a great peace. 

“Why?” she questioned. “But why?” 

“I loved his mother,” he stated simply. 

“Oh,” she said, vaguely, while far down the 
hallway a door crashed shut. 


THE GREATER JOY 

I F weak brains did not tire rapidly in the 
sunlight and if Father Bonville had not 
felt the need of a body servant, it would 
never have happened. Which is but another way 
of saying that coordinate circumstances rule the 
world. 

Chabot stood without and glanced timidly 
toward the cool shadows of the cathedral, even as 
the sedate tones of an organ poured faintly 
forth. “Come,” the shrill high notes seemed to 
invite, and the deep bass echoed a confirming 
“Come.” 

So, with a final glance at the glaring sunlit 
world, he stepped within. 

It was, as he expected, cool and dim. Shafts 
of colored light fell from the stained glass of the 
windows, kissing the stone flagging of the floor 
into pools of light. 

With a few notes of welcome and an exultant 
flourish the organ settled into silence, as Father 
Bonville stepped forward. He commenced to 
speak with lips that were tight with austerity. 
With stunned wonder the youth listened to the 
glowing words. Not that he understood them, 
193 


THE RETURN 


but words that received such mouthing must of 
necessity be glowing. All too soon the service 
came to an end, the worshipers rose and flocked 
out, all save Chabot, who sat unheeding, his un- 
fathomable eyes grasping at the hem of the 
future. 

So it was that Father Bonville discovered him 
and, as was his custom, spoke a few kind words — 
then passed on. 

But it was enough. The seeds of kindness 
sown upon unaccustomed soil brought forth an 
overwhelming harvest of amazed gratitude. 
Chabot followed him intermittently from a dis- 
creet distance for three consecutive days. Even- 
tually, however, Father Bonville became cog- 
nizant of the ever- shadowing presence, and as, 
in spite of his Heavenly founded trust, he in- 
variably required explanations for earthly phe- 
nomena, he determined to fathom the other’s 
actions. 

This resolution led him to recall the days, ere 
he became a celibate, in which he had observed 
the manners of the village coquettes. Assuming 
somewhat of their tactics, he dropped his manual 
of prayer, which the alert Chabot made haste to 
secure for him. 

“I thank thee,” said he in deep but gentle 
tones, when the restitution had been made. 
“Here are a few centimes for bread and wine.” 

194 


THE GREATER JOY 


For an instant the lad hesitated, then, amazed 
at his own audacity, declined the offering. 
“Rather would I have occasional words with 
thee, at thy convenience,” said he with apparent 
effort. 

The good father regarded him narrowly for 
an instant. “Words as to what?” he questioned. 

“Of the saints, the Christ Child, and the Bles- 
sed Virgin,” the other replied, as a consuming 
thirst leaped into his eyes. 

At this the holy man beamed down upon him. 
It delighted him not a little to find here among 
the masses such hunger for his wares. 

Briefly he pondered. Finally, “Thou art a 
good lad,” said he. “We will see what can be 
done. Would it please thee to be unto me of 
service when in less busy moments we might find 
time to discuss the Blessed Ones?” 

The boy’s arms reached out in beseeching joy, 
coming suddenly to a shrinking pause, ere they 
had touched the other’s vestures, as a wanton 
might shrink from contact with a crucifix. The 
attitude and the exquisite joy radiating from his 
countenance were in themselves sufficient answer. 

“Where reside thy good father and mother?” 
the priest inquired. He received a hastily mum- 
bled but exact reply, punctuated with numerous 
assurances that to them he was but a worthless 
195 


THE RETURN 

swine, from whom they would indeed be glad to 
part. 

“We will see, we will see,” cheerfully re- 
sponded the holy man, as he made a note of the 
address, “and for to-day you must follow me 
no more, for I go to hear the confession of the 
Queen’s good mother.” At which they parted. 

The lad went immediately home, where he be- 
came so ferociously eloquent in his own behalf 
that his parents, wishing to attain unto even 
greater longevity than their present state, hastily 
mumbled a toothless assent. 

As for the good father, he proceeded to the 
Queen’s mother, where confession became 
blended with reminiscence, while much wine and 
many little pastries went to sustain him. That 
evening he sat through the curt length of the 
monasterial repast with bowed head. From time 
to time his benign gaze would rest upon the cold 
fish and bread, only to seek his lap in hasty 
renunciation. Subsequently he retired fasting to 
bed. 

The following day, after a brief conference 
conducted under the baleful glance of the youth, 
the aged couple gave their son to the holy man, 
receiving in return his benediction. 

Thus it came about that the Abbe Bonville 
acquired, without expense to himself, a servant 
of great usefulness and abounding devotion, and, 
196 


THE GREATER JOY 


as Chabot consecrated his energies to a life of 
service, there kindled within his breast a passion 
for divine recognition, pathetic in its intensity. 

Simple minds possess but few desires, but, by 
way of equalization, they are unusually intense. 
What is more, Chabot’s interpretation of all phe- 
nomena, spiritual and otherwise, was literal in 
the extreme. In his religion little was emblem- 
atic, much was real. What he could not under- 
stand, he accepted without question, thus day by 
day encompassing himself with an impregnable 
faith, unassailable by even the light of reason. 

“As it was written, so let it be” — and with him 
so it was. 

As time went on there sprang up between the 
lad and the good father a friendship augmented 
by the former’s zeal for spiritual knowledge and 
his unceasing adulation. Thus the holy man be- 
came cognizant of the many questions that bestir 
the minds of the humble and lowly, which gave 
him a mental stimulus, plus a certain prepared- 
ness for similar and more adroitly couched ques- 
tions from clearer minds. 

During the hours of prostrate reverie which 
this most excellent man allowed himself each 
afternoon, with the assiduous youth seated ever 
near, gently fanning him, they would explore 
Christian heights and pagan depths. And the 
good father found in the other’s unargumenta- 
197 


THE RETURN 


tive and literal acceptance of ecclesiastical dogma 
a refreshing change from the incessant quibbling 
of more learned minds. 

Among other attributes, the lad ere long ac- 
quired the training of the masseurs, which greatly 
delighted his benefactor. For on occasions when 
he would return overburdened with the weight of 
many confessions, he could relax ponderously 
upon his couch, while the other, with deft fingers, 
would so manipulate the huge body that soon he 
would arise again, refreshed for other good 
works. 

Thus the months sped by, with but one cloud 
ever hovering upon the boy’s mental horizon — 
the crying and ever-present need of Divine rec- 
ognition. The frequent assurances that not so 
much as a sparrow’s death escaped Heavenly 
cognizance answered but as insufficient assuage- 
ment to this inward craving. He thirsted and 
longed for some more personally direct form of 
service than through this holy man — praying for 
some chance to single himself out from among 
the masses, the more directly to impel Heavenly 
approbation. And to his prayers came at last 
the answer devious. 

It was a warm summer’s day, during that por- 
tion of the afternoon generally devoted to re- 
cuperation, when the inspiration first came. And, 
198 


THE GREATER JOY 


as not infrequently happens in such cases, it left 
the lad dazed and trembling. 

On the couch lay the good father, too deeply 
immersed in slumber to heed the persistent flies 
that dared the glistening slopes of his denuded 
brow and head. One, more bold than his com- 
panions, had braved the yawning cavern of the 
ecclesiastical mouth, but alas for those who suc- 
cumb to temptation! The heavy jaws closed 
with a snap. From time to time the deep rumble 
of the corpulent at rest pervaded the atmosphere, 
punctuated by long sighs, then periods of quiet. 

Those who watch by the side of others who 
slumber are prone to think unusual thoughts, 
and Chabot was no exception. 

Across his idle fancy stole visions of the morn- 
ing, when into the good father’s sanctuary was 
ushered a woman of great wealth from another 
province. Her face and form pulsated with an 
unusual beauty, yet she had sinned. But as the 
heart was good, repentance had rapidly followed, 
whereupon she had journeyed hither to unburden 
her aching heart. 

As she entered, her very attire expressive of 
refined and luxuriant grief, the holy man had 
turned to the boy, who was busily engaged in a 
series of petty and detaining services. 

“Chabot,” said he kindly, “thou hast doubtless 
much to employ thee elsewhere.” 

199 


THE RETURN 


Whereupon the youth departed from view, 
naught but a flattened ear, in close proximity 
with a near-by doorway, bespeaking his presence. 

The woman stated her sin in low, vibrant tones, 
which rose in volume until not a syllable escaped 
the listening lad, who apparently found the nar- 
rative an interesting one. Then, as if some kind 
Providence wished to throw even greater incident 
into his meager life, a vagrant breeze stole softly 
down from the near-by hills, swaying gently the 
curtained doorway and affording him intermit- 
tent glimpses of the scene within. 

At the consummation of her confession, she 
had slowly raised her heavy, velvet eyes, her 
crimson lips expectantly parted. The face of the 
priest, however, was stern and hard. To the 
woman its expression spelled damnation. Grief 
and terror surged within her. Whereupon, the 
better to emphasize her repentance, she flung her 
long, lithe body upon the hard floor, pounding, 
with desperate little blows, the cold stone flag- 
ging, her form undulating with emotion. 

In spite of its priestly training, Father Bon- 
ville’s mind worked in masculine channels. Ap- 
parently he found in this physical exhibition of 
grief much that was convincing, for, when at 
length the woman again raised her gaze, his face 
wore a more compassionate expression. 

“Yours is yet a young life,” said he gently. 

200 


THE GREATER JOY 


“By devoting it to kindness and charity, it would 
doubtless be possible to atone for your trans- 
gression.” 

“But the sin!” cried the woman. “It would 
be always there, haunting me by day and by 
night. And as I could not free myself, it would 
be ever with me, tempting me to sin anew.” 

The good father rose to his full height, and his 
dignity robbed him of many pounds. “Joy shall 
be in Heaven,” said he, as his expressive hand 
rose in skyward indication, “over one sinner that 
repenteth, more than over ninety-and-nine just 
persons which need no repentance.” Then, his 
gesture seeking a more benedictory level: “Wom- 
an, go and sin no more.” 

From the floor the woman arose, her soul 
freed from the weight of sin, the better able to 
fight anew the battle of life. And from that 
time, among the poor of the parish, destitution 
became less noticeable. 

Gradually the picture faded from the lad’s 
vision until at length only the holy man with up- 
raised hand, elucidating his words of promise, 
remained. 

From over the Mediterranean came, softly at 
first, the sea breeze of the afternoon, while from 
afar wafted occasional sounds, intimating that 
the town was commencing to free itself from the 
lethargy of a hot summer’s day. Still the youth 
201 


THE RETURN 


sat, gazing into space; then, suddenly lowering 
his head upon a near-by desk, he burst into a 
paroxysm of silent weeping. After a protracted 
interval, he again raised his face, and in his eyes 
shone the light of a spiritual miser, who has 
found the key to untold treasures. 

Father Bonville had just partaken of nourish- 
ment and was bravely fighting sleep that he 
might complete an epistle to a certain charitable 
General of more or less transient habits. 

“Chabot,” he called at length, the task accom- 
plished. 

“I am here, Your Reverence,” said a voice, so 
close that it caused the good man to start. For 
Chabot was fast learning to read. 

“Here is a letter to General — ah — ” He 
paused, in apparent momentary forgetfulness. 

“Monchant,” supplied the youth, falling into 
the trap. 

“Precisely,” said the other, and subsequently 
removed not a little of his correspondence to 
more repote parts. This necessary task accom- 
plished, he again seated himself meditatively in 
his handsomely carved, high-backed chair. From 
time to time a frown crossed his huge and usually 
kind features. Personally, he had small liking 
for him to whom he had just written, a man high 
in public and military affairs, possessed of a 
202 


THE GREATER JOY 


caustic tongue and harsh features. But he gave 
largely to the church, to the accompaniment of 
sacrilegious remarks, and, as there were many 
poor in the province, it appeared not amiss to 
procure the good, even though the source was 
evil — thus, in a measure, forcing the devil to 
equip his enemies. The comparison was a pleas- 
ing one, and, as the sun shifted to a less intrusive 
angle, Father Bonville relaxed still deeper in his 
chair. Ere long he was sleeping the sleep of the 
just — and the well fed. 

As for Chabot, he soon arrived at his destina- 
tion, where his presence below was quickly an- 
nounced. On hearing whose messenger awaited 
him, a grim smile crossed the General’s hard 
features. 

“So,” said he in a high, irascible voice. Then: 
“Well, I’ll see him later.” 

When the page had withdrawn, he again 
turned his attention to a parchment map which 
lay spread before him, from time to time making 
additions. Finally, after locking the door, he 
approached the wall, where, with deft fingers, he 
slid aside a panel and extended his arm well 
within an aperture. There he deposited the map 
and again closed the panel with a snap. Then, 
after unlocking the door and seating himself at 
the table, he gave his attention to some corre- 
spondence the page had placed before him. 

203 


THE RETURN 


Below, Chabot, who, as bearer of Father Bon- 
ville’s messages, was unaccustomed to such de- 
lays, became clamorously indignant that any one 
should thus keep the good father so long in wait- 
ing a reply. At length he prevailed upon 
another page to announce him again. This time 
his efforts were attended with better success, for 
he was bidden to ascend. 

The room in which he found himself resembled 
both a study and an armory. From the walls 
hung a series of swords, spears, and clubs, 
gleaned from protracted wanderings among 
many nations and savage tribes. At a table, his 
back toward the youth, sat the General, appar- 
ently busily engaged in writing. The page, after 
announcing him, rapidly departed. For a space, 
Chabot remained standing, then, fearing that his 
presence had been forgotten, cleared his throat 
several times with rising inflection. 

Still the man continued to write, the broad, 
enigmatical back giving no clue as to whether he 
was aware of the other’s presence. At length, 
perceiving that a period of waiting was imminent 
and apparently reading into the formidable and 
forbidding back a warning against further tenta- 
tive coughing, Chabot turned his attention to 
the wall, where he found much to interest him 
among the array of arms there displayed. 

204 


THE GREATER JOY 


Preeminent in its suggestion of ferocious bru- 
tality was a well-balanced war club, wrested but 
recently by its present owner from the hands of 
a dying Indian chief. As the youth surveyed 
it, he involuntarily bathed his spirit in the mute 
suggestion of ferocity that permeated it, then 
again glanced towards the writing man. Seeing 
no signs of a speedy opportunity for delivering 
the missive, he seated himself, with a sigh, upon 
a long bench near the door. Slowly the minutes 
crept by. The room was cool and refreshing in 
comparison with the glaring streets without. 
Only an occasional cry broke upon the stillness. 
As time wore on he commenced to lose his im- 
patience, while a dreamy aloofness stole over him 
— almost a semblance of peace — as his senses be- 
came lulled by the steady scratching of the quill. 
But one thing stood between him and absolute 
serenity — the fact that he had thus far failed 
to achieve divine recognition. And he reflected, 
as his frail little body gave a luxuriant quiver, 
that he now held the solution of even that prob- 
lem. Soon all would be well, and he arose softly 
from his chair. 

At length the man at the table spoke. “Well, 
my little beggar, what would your good master, 
the Prince of Beggars, have of me to-day?” 

He paused, then, receiving no reply, turned 
205 


THE RETURN 


slightly, glancing behind. A moment too late, 
however, for a war club of savage pattern, im- 
pelled with fanatic strength, descended with sig- 
nificant concussion upon his unprotected head. 

For an instant he swayed, while his hands 
opened and closed graspingly. Then his body 
lurched forward in the chair. 

A throng had assembled to witness the end 
of a life which had scarcely known a beginning. 
Their gaze was riveted with unwavering intent 
upon a high wooden platform, where, with arms 
folded upon a massive chest, his features merci- 
fully concealed by a curt black mask, stood the 
executioner. 

Near by was a lad of indeterminate age. A 
fat priest, assisted from below, mounted with 
difficulty the rough structure, then, with slow 
steps and bowed head, approached the meager 
but erect figure of the youth, whose gaze was far 
out over the Mediterranean. 

At length he paused before this lad whom he 
had come to love. He had used every known 
plea to save him, but the age of quibbling as to 
mental soundness was still to come, while assas- 
sins were harshly and speedily dealt with. With 
trembling hands he commenced to perform the 
final offices, then, as though finding the words of 
206 


THE GREATER JOY 

the service inadequate, “Ah, Chabot,” he ex- 
claimed for the hundredth time, “but why this 
act? Hast thou no word at parting? No re- 
pentance ?” 

The youth, sensing the feeling in the other’s 
tones, recalled his gaze from over the waters. A 
hectic flush crossed his pallid face. 

His eyes held the good father, but he did not 
see him. Instead, seared upon his mental vision, 
was the prostrate form of a beautiful woman. 
Over her stood a holy man with hand upraised 
in solemn speech. 

Unconsciously the youth assumed a similar 
attitude, while his erstwhile wavering voice rang 
full and clear. Every word was audible to even 
the most remote bystander. 

“I have repentance,” came from his lips in 
clear articulation. “For there shall be more joy 
in Heaven over one sinner that repenteth than 
over ninety-and-nine just persons who need no 
repentance. Therefore have I sinned.” 

The setting sun had dropped to a level with the 
red-tiled roofs, flooding his face with a golden, 
unearthly radiance. His lips were parted in a 
rare smile. 

“Wherefore,” the clear voice continued, as his 
upraised hand sought a more benedictory level, 
“I go, to sin no more.” 


207 


THE RETURN 


A sob from the lips of a fat priest broke the 
stillness and the executioner stepped forward. 

In a near-by street the pompous funeral of a 
celebrated General rolled solemnly past, while 
deep within the walls of his home lay a parch- 
ment map, which, because death came upon him 
unawares, will never reach the enemies of his 
country. 


ANOTHER LIGHT THAT FAILED 

I N this particular case “young Lochinvar” 
had come out of the East. His “steed” 
was a smoothly-riding parlor car, his “good 
broadsword” a fountain pen with which he signed 
innumerable orders for a chemical and drug firm. 

He was a tall, erect, tight-shouldered young 
fellow, with an attractive smile that would have 
been more so, could he have registered it in his 
eyes, which were rather small and hard. It was 
this same hardness that veiled a weakly imperious 
and petulant mouth. His name was Carl Muen- 
ster. 

Slowly the train trundled to an easy halt as a 
gigantic darky, who staggered beneath a load 
of luggage, looped his one unemployed thumb 
through the handle of Muenster’s valise. 

“Tacoma, sah,” he announced, then tottered 
along the aisle, through the door, and down the 
sharp incline of the steps, finally depositing his 
burdens with a grunt of relief. Among those 
who had tipped him he had shown no partiality. 
Muenster shortly entered a bus, which took him 
rapidly to the Hotel Tacoma, where he engaged 


a room. 


209 


THE RETURN 

After a bath and a substantial mid-afternoon 
lunch, followed by a reflective cigar under the 
awnings of the broad veranda, he wandered out. 
Eventually he consulted a lean, Adam’s-appled 
policeman who was wearing a poorly fitting uni- 
form, and who indicated an approaching car, 
which Muenster boarded. The bell clanged, and 
the car ground on, up a hill that threatened at 
any moment to become perpendicular. 

At the brow of the hill he stepped off, crossed 
the street, and entered an unpretentious-looking 
drug store with a cheap window plate which 
threw an atmosphere of tarnish upon its display. 
But Muenster knew that, despite its shoddy ap- 
pearance, this little store placed rather substan- 
tial orders. For it was a custom of his firm to 
employ the salesmen of rival concerns at sus- 
piciously high salaries, only to pump them dry of 
valuable information. Thereafter they dispensed 
with their services. 

His quick regard wandered about the neat in- 
terior of the pharmacy, coming to a pause upon 
the still neater ankles of a lithe, blond young 
girl who, standing high on a frail ladder, was 
arranging stock upon a remote shelf. At the 
sound of his step she turned and commenced to 
descend; then, because skirts were worn a trifle 
longer in those days, she caught her foot, swayed 
dizzily, and fell. Muenster, sensing her predica- 
210 


ANOTHER LIGHT THAT FAILED 


ment, moved quickly beneath the ladder and 
caught her. He held her lightly, easily, until 
her balance returned; then, before the contact 
should suggest intimacy, he released her with 
that winning smile upon his lips which he could 
never duplicate in his eyes. 

She thanked him as she rearranged her finely 
spun hair; carefully her delicate hands wove the 
loosened strands into place. He had read some 
poetry (most Germans have) and subconsciously 
he found himself comparing its luxurious dead- 
golden sheen to sunlight fighting its way through 
mist. 

He waved away her thanks with a deprecatory 
motion and again glanced appraisingly about the 
store. Then, as his successful system of sales- 
manship required that invariably he buy before 
attempting to sell, he invested in a few articles 
which were, by the way, the products of his firm. 
These items he would list under “miscellaneous” 
in his expense account. 

“The store is yours?” he questioned, when the 
bundles were neatly wrapped in blue paper. He 
knew it was not, but considered the implication 
more or less of a compliment. As he spoke, he 
had moved to the soda fountain and stood leis- 
urely affable, an implication of thirst in his at- 
titude. 

“No, it is father’s,” the girl replied. 

211 


THE RETURN 


“May I see him? Is he in?” 

She hesitated momentarily. “He’s resting; he 
has not been well. Is it something I could do?” 

“I’ll come again. This evening perhaps?” 
There was subtly suggested disappointment in 
Muenster’s voice. 

“If it’s important,” said the girl hesitantly, 
“I could call him.” She had passed behind the 
fountain and Muenster found himself gazing 
with odd pleasure into her clear, candid eyes. 
What a warm, compassionate little mouth she 
had, he reflected irrelevantly, then snapped the 
train of thought with an irritable flicker of his 
stiff eyelashes. This was not business ! 

“Please, no,” he assured, recalling himself. “I 
can come again. Do not disturb him if he is not 
well.” 

Inwardly Muenster was marveling, for he 
had always prided himself on his dispatch. He 
never missed a train, nor was late for an appoint- 
ment, and covered all territory in record time. 
Yet, here he was, evincing solicitude for a man 
he had never seen. Why? 

Then, invariably honest with himself at least, 
he decided it was because of the girl and ordered 
ice cream (he secretly loathed it), that he might 
enjoy watching those fragile hands. Deftly she 
dropped the cream from a cone-shaped scoop to 
a flowered saucer — forget-me-nots, they were. 

212 


ANOTHER LIGHT THAT FAILED 


As she passed it to him he caught the delicate 
modeling of her arm, revealed by the thinness of 
her sleeve, Ach, what a girl! How she forced 
one’s mind to thoughts that were not of business ! 

Slowly, heroically, he ate the cream, which was 
rather poor in quality and tasted like frozen lard. 
As a modern Sir Galahad he finished it — a 
Knight of the Road, jeopardizing his digestion 
for the sheer pleasure of watching her. 

As he was about to leave, the faded green cur- 
tain, which draped the way to a back room, was 
brushed aside, and John Mittenhoff stood blink- 
ing inquiringly out across his little store. He 
was a short, stooped man, with lean, aesthetic 
features, upon which was the indelible stamp of 
poor health. 

“Some one to see you, father,” said the girl, by 
way of introduction. 

Mittenhoff bowed with grave courtesy, as 
Muenster passed over his card bearing the leg- 
end, “Breiter & Franck, Drugs & Chemicals, 
Wholesale & Retail.” 

Invariably he prefaced an interview with a 
card. It gave him time to study his prospects 
more fully. Besides, he could gauge somewhat 
of the rapidity of their mental processes by the 
time they spent in reading it. It was over a 
minute before Mittenhoff glanced up. 

213 


THE RETURN 


“We deal with the Clayton Company of New- 
ark,” he said mildly. 

“Yes, yes, of course,” Muenster agreed, “an 
excellent firm. They buy frequently of us, then 
resell. That is why we can offer you better fig- 
ures. Besides, we allow fifty per cent of all or- 
ders to remain on consignment ; you pay us when 
the goods are sold.” 

“So?” There was a flicker of interest in the 
tired eyes of the little proprietor. 

“The advantages are obvious,” Muenster 
urged. “It gives you opportunity to try out new 
lines with small cash investment. Then, as we 
liberally advertise all our goods, your sales are 
practically assured in advance.” 

“But the Clayton Company?” Obviously, 
Mittenhoff was wavering. 

“Most simple,” the other assured. “Wire them 
you have established new connections. That will 
save you an interview and them the trouble of a 
visit.” Muenster ’s quick intellect had already 
gathered that business interviews were embar- 
rassing to this little man. 

“Perhaps there is a small amount due on their 
last account?” he pressed on. “If so, we should 
be most pleased to assume it for you. You could 
repay us later on as convenient. Your growth 
is ours; our resources are yours.” 

“Their salesman has been kind to me — yes, 
214 


ANOTHER LIGHT THAT FAILED 


many times.” Still Mittenhoff was weakly ob- 
durate. 

“He is now in our employ,” Muenster came 
back, as that winning smile lighted up his face, 
“and that removes all difficulty.” 

So Muenster had his way and his orders, as 
was generally the case. Nor did little Mitten- 
hoff realize that he was in line for a slow process 
of annexation — a system which was to involve 
him in debt and then, if his location proved a 
profitable one, to buy him out at a ridiculously 
low figure. In fact, he never realized it, in this 
world at least; for shortly he died, and, before 
the end came, Muenster was in love with his 
daughter. 

At first Muenster fought this love with the 
irritable violence common to men who consider 
women a lower order of being and resent their 
appeal accordingly. It seemed almost an im- 
pertinence when thoughts of her would intrude 
at odd, inexplicable moments, always shortly 
after he had decided not to consider her again for 
the day. This ever-present recollection clouded 
his business acumen, stripped the tripping 
fluency from his speech, and ended by temporar- 
ily injecting a certain laxness into his rather un- 
scrupulous methods. 

He found himself lingering in the West, on 
one pretext or another, so planning his week- 
215 


THE RETURN 


ends that invariably they brought him to Tacoma. 
Even the girl’s name (Mary it was) assumed a 
certain alluring simplicity he had never before 
realized. In fact, he had always considered it a 
rather ordinary name that parents bestowed for 
reasons of inheritance or because they were too 
indolent to think of a better one. At times he 
eulogized her quiet, noncommittal ways as sweet 
and womanly. Again he seemed to sense in them 
the deep wiles of the born coquette and blamed 
her American mother for their presence. For 
Muenster had all the vain man’s fear of a rebuff. 
He could suffer mentally, but his pride must 
remain intact. 

As the weeks passed, his firm commenced to 
speculate upon his continued absence. But, as 
they had good reason to believe that profit and 
per cent were his only gods, they decided to wait 
before summoning him. Even if his stay proved 
merely a vacation, they admitted he was entitled 
to it, as he had never taken one since coming 
to them. 

Mary’s attitude toward Muenster has already 
been mentioned as reserved and noncommittal; 
nor did she relax as time wore on. The advances 
were invariably his, though it can hardly be 
claimed that she received them coldly. 

Of Sunday mornings they went to church, 
where Muenster listened, critically polite, to 
216 


ANOTHER LIGHT THAT FAILED 


creeds in which he had little faith. None of the 
Deities being listed in his copies of Dunn or 
Bradstreet, he questioned their power. But, for 
once, religion promised to assist him in giving 
him an opportunity to study Mary at length. 
Besides, the services in some unaccountable w r ay 
drew them close. To him it was an unfailing 
source of wonder how the girl put herself into 
the ritual of it all. Each response, as she made 
it, seemed a personal reply to a power from 
above. While as for the hymns, she sang them in 
a voice without volume, but ineffably sweet. 

Later they would dine with her father, and 
Billy, her small brother. Billy was about the 
average for his age. He possessed a large, whim- 
sical mouth and distinctly humorous eyes, which 
for some unknown reason crinkled with poorly 
suppressed amusement whenever they rested 
upon Muenster. From the first a tacit dislike 
existed between them. 

Often Muenster took Mary to Seattle on the 
excursion boat, returning by moonlight. There 
was something weirdly hypnotic to these night 
trips across the glacier-cooled waters of Puget 
Sound. At times they sat side by side, facing 
the bow, in odd little seats, for all the world like 
miniature barber chairs; and listened forgivingly 
to the efforts of a wire-fingered pianist, as he 
rapped out apologies for music from a diminutive 
217 


THE RETURN 


portable piano. When even love could stand the 
melodies no longer, they retired to the shadowy 
seclusion of the bow and leaned arms on rail, 
watching the continuous, broken glide of the 
foam as it slipped past beneath. Occasionally 
from the darkness beyond would come the hoarse 
bleat of a hair seal, adding loneliness to the sur- 
rounding night. 

On one of these trips Muenster proposed. It 
was just as a big full moon wandered from be- 
hind a bank of clouds and threw its gilding light 
among the snow-carpeted valleys of a distant 
mountain range. 

“Some day I shall be rich — yes, very rich,” he 
said. “Will you marry me?” 

“Even if you were to be very poor, it would 
make no difference when I love you,” she replied, 
and raised her lips to his. 

Through all these weeks, old Mittenhoff was 
dying, slowly, half imperceptibly, as shadows 
drift across a room at dusk. Each day his frail 
frame bent lower above his desk in the little back 
room. Here he intermittently played jackstraws 
by himself or peered with dimming sight at the 
picture of his wife whose life had ended as Mary’s 
began. 

He acknowledged the engagement courteously 
when Muenster later told him of it, and tried in 
218 


ANOTHER LIGHT THAT FAILED 


fatherly manner to make his eyes, which were 
vague, appear analytical. And Muenster, rarely 
tactful through love, told the other more of him- 
self and acutely caught the old man’s poorly sup- 
pressed relief that Mary was to have some one to 
look out for her. 

Within a month the marriage took place. A 
week later, and Mittenhoff had died. To Muen- 
ster the girl’s grief seemed very real and intense. 
In an odd way this pleased him, for, himself 
lacking the capacity of deep feeling, he ap- 
proved it correspondingly in others. 

Shortly the little pharmacy was sold, and 
Muenster, his bride, and Billy, the small brother, 
returned East, establishing themselves in New 
York. Here Muenster prospered and eventually 
became almost as wealthy as he had predicted he 
would. 

First, however, he had to revise somewhat his 
outlook upon life — superficially, at least. He 
found that his habit for hitting below the com- 
mercial belt, which had proved so profitable while 
on the road, must be discarded, or at least care- 
fully concealed, if he was to establish contacts 
with the really big and worth-while men of 
finance. Slowly, but emphatically, he learned 
that reputation is nine-tenths of the deal, as, 
with his usual adaptability, he proceeded to build 
himself a character. At first his firm looked on 
219 


THE RETURN 


askance as their genial pirate of the road re- 
formed himself. But, when they commenced to 
appreciate the clientele he was bringing them, 
they admitted he was right and took him into the 
firm. 

“We don’t quite get the idea,” said Franck, 
“but, as you’re delivering the goods, we leave it 
to you.” This was after Muenster had coun- 
ciled, even insisted, that they sacrifice temporary 
profits to adjust a matter in which literally, 
though not legally, they were at fault. 

Breiter, the other partner, who had a strong 
leaning toward a more “buyer beware,” cut- 
throat type of business, rubbed the large pores 
of his roseate nose with a reflective finger. He 
could find no argument, in view of the mounting 
profits. 

Muenster’s home life was a thing apart. He 
had purchased an old, rambling, comfortable 
house on Staten Island. It stood, surrounded 
by ample grounds, on a slight elevation, over- 
looking the bay. From a social standpoint it 
was a little remote, but Muenster intended no 
efforts to penetrate the four hundred until well 
assured of his welcome. 

One would have scarcely recognized him for 
the brisk, slightly too pushing young salesman 
of old, who invariably rode on parlor cars in 
order to observe how the “big fellows,” as he 
220 


ANOTHER LIGHT THAT FAILED 


termed them, comported themselves. These 
same parlor cars had afforded him an oppor- 
tunity to listen in on their conversations and to 
learn their points of view. And gradually he 
came to sense that too much aggressiveness in 
speech or dress was the badge of mediocrity. 

Shirts with vivid patterns, that suggested the 
wardrobe of a bull-fighter, he had grudgingly 
relinquished, though secretly they still appealed. 
Bit by bit he became more conservative in word 
and deed, if not in thought, until finally he won 
to a quiet distinction of manner that proved an 
eventual business asset. And when a few gray 
hairs gradually appeared at his temples, the 
effect was complete. 

Mary remained about the same, except that 
with the passing years her slight figure took on 
more appealing lines. Even as Muenster had 
expected, she proved an admirable wife, exactly 
suited to the type of man who must concentrate 
on business and fight his way. She was quiet, 
self-effacing, nonexacting — a haven of rest after 
the day’s work. And as the prospect of children 
became more and more remote, she lavished her 
surplus affections upon her husband, much to 
his gratification. 

It speaks well for marriage or for Mary that 
two such opposite types could blend so har- 
moniously, though it must be admitted that 
221 


THE RETURN 


Muenster was kind and thoughtful to a degree. 
Her few wants he anticipated with an accuracy 
that implied he might have become a successful 
“ladies’ man,” had his ambitions lain in that direc- 
tion. Even toward her brother, whom he had 
never come to endure, he was as generous as cir- 
cumstances permitted. But Billy, who also still 
held an inexplicable dislike for Muenster, would 
accept few favors. 

In most lines of endeavor, after a certain 
eminence has been attained, success apparently 
comes more easily. It may be that the world 
makes way for evinced ability — or simply that 
one’s climbing muscles have developed. At any 
rate, Muenster had reached and passed this 
point, and the way lay clear. 

“I have arrived,” he announced, one night 
after dinner. Then he proceeded to tell Mary 
of the final merger that had crowned his career. 

“How glad I am!” she said, and seated herself 
on the arm of his chair, lightly running her deli- 
cate fingers through his coarse, close-cropped 
hair. “You’ve worked so hard,” she added. 

At her caress he leaned back relaxedly, self- 
esteem and dreamy content in his face. For 
those fragile hands had lost none of their appeal ; 
her warm, compassionate little mouth still stood 
for all that he was not and lured him accord- 
ingly. 


222 


ANOTHER LIGHT THAT FAILED 


“Yes,” he went on in reminiscent self-eulogy. 
“I, once a poor boy, a young nobody from the 
Fatherland, with only an average education — 
and to-day — look! A member of one of the best 
clubs, financially powerful. But a motion of 
my hand — and social success is ours.” 

She bent to him and pressed her lips lightly 
upon his brow. There was much of the maternal 
in the action — as though she were vastly the 
older in years, yet felt that he had earned the 
right to vaunt a little, if he cared to. 

“I’m so glad,” she said again. 

He smiled up at her with complacent lips 
(through all the years his eyes had remained 
bleak), then drew her hands between his big 
palms and held them, studying them. How 
clinging and ineffectual, yet potent they were, 
he reflected! 

“What shall it be?” he asked, at length. “A 
new car — a limousine?” 

Their old car, only a year old at that, was still 
running perfectly. There was no need for a 
new one. Yet intuitively she sensed that this 
was his hour for play and to buy things for her 
was a form of amusement. 

“How lovely,” she said, with a rare blend of 
love and affectionate understanding. “I know 
just the one; it has wire wheels,” she added. 

223 


THE RETURN 


“We get it to-morrow,” he promised and 
slipped his arm about her. 

Contentedly they sat in the intimate little 
study through the remainder of the evening, 
Mary abstractedly embroidering. Muenster, re- 
laxed in his chair, his eyes upon the ceiling, 
smoked as he figured future profits ; for the game 
had got into his blood. Now that he had reached 
his goal he was already setting new ones, in the 
way of those who win. 

Gradually the fire sank lower on the hearth. 
Outside a rising wind sang softly, drawing 
tentatively at the low-set French windows of the 
old-fashioned house. Occasionally, from across 
the bay, long-drawn blasts from groping ships 
fought to them up the wind, toned and softened 
through the distance. 

Eventually the man’s hard little eyes blinked, 
wavered, then closed; and soon he was asleep. 
He breathed unevenly, like a healthy, over-tired 
boy — while, from a near-by chair, Mary watched 
him with yearning love and sympathy. Finally, 
as a large tear of pure content traced itself across 
her cheek, she rose and dimmed the light. 

It was shortly after the launching of the second 
Liberty Loan that a strong atmosphere of dis- 
cord intruded among the partners of Breiter, 
Franck, & Muenster. Franck was stalking 
224 


ANOTHER LIGHT THAT FAILED 


moodily about the room in noncommittal silence. 
Little Breiter, fat and suspicious as ever, perched 
sideways on his chair. His eyes, glassy and 
belligerent as a thirsty toad’s, were focused upon 
a diamond ring that glinted on his chubby hand. 
From time to time he opened his fingers, dis- 
playing it. Occasionally he rubbed his stout 
knees irritably together. Muenster, seated at a 
flat-topped desk, impatiently toyed with a state- 
ment of the year’s profits, an expression of 
finality on his sharply-cut features. 

“To me it seems we have no choice in the mat- 
ter,” he resumed at length, addressing Franck, 
who appeared the more neutral of the two senior 
partners. His voice was steady, level, imbued 
with a certain power that carried conviction. 

“Choice — ha!” grunted Breiter, who rarely 
allowed himself to be impressed. “Dree und a 
haf per zent; und you would put our entire sur- 
blus for der year into dem — craziness — foolish- 
ness — bughouse !” 

Muenster smiled slightly, as he drew one of 
the firm’s cards from a partly open drawer. 
“Listen to this,” he requested, and slowly read 
from it with peculiar emphasis : “Breiter, F ranck 
& Muenster”; then glanced up. “Rather Ger- 
man in sound, isn’t it?” he questioned. 

“Veil, what’s der matter mit it?” snapped 
Breiter. “Zounds all right to me, maybe, but 
225 


THE RETURN 


the last name.” He relished the sort of fight he 
could conduct without leaving his chair, and, as 
the passing years threw their protective shadows 
upon him, he allowed his tongue constantly in- 
creasing and insulting license. 

At this Franck halted in his nervous walk and 
swung about. 

“Come, come,” he said, soothingly addressing 
Breiter. “This is a business meeting, not a free- 
for-all.” 

“Pizness,” scoffed the little man. “Pizness to 
rent monies at four per zent, ven fools can get 
six mit safety. Dot iss not pizness — it’s Christ- 
mas presents, charity.” 

“Not entirely,” urged Franck. “The bonds 
are stable, have a good borrowing value. Be- 
sides, it’s fashionable for a firm to own them — 
makes people like us.” 

“Ve could be just as stylish on two or dree,” 
the other came back. “Ve say T own Liberty 
Bonds.’ Dey say ‘goot.’ No von ask how 
much.” 

“Not now, perhaps,” Muenster broke in. “But 
they will ask in time. And if we can say we’ve 
put our entire net surplus for the year into the 
second loan, it will look well — that is, after we’ve 
deducted our salaries; and of course we might 
raise them a little first. It’s the idea I’m after, 
not so many dollars and cents.” 

226 


ANOTHER LIGHT THAT FAILED 


“Und ven dey learn in Cher many dat we 
plunged on der Liberty Loan, how about der 
carbolic shipment ve have der option on for after 
der war? Vill ve gedt it? Not! Dey kick us 
in der pants and tell us to chew on der bonds ve 
buy for stylishness. Isn’t it?” 

“There’s something to that,” said Franck, 
judicially. He turned questioningly to Muen- 
ster, as if waiting to have this new difficulty 
solved. For a moment Muenster hesitated, then, 
swinging his long legs free of the desk, he rose. 

“If you will lend me your support in this mat- 
ter,” he said, addressing them both, “I will per- 
sonally guarantee there shall be no trouble con- 
cerning the carbolic shipment. I am not free to 
say more.” 

Breiter’s toadlike eyes puckered and became 
less staring. His broad but receding chin was 
munching reflectively upon the wrapper of his 
cigar. At length he spoke. 

“You vould berhaps guarantee der profits ont 
der deal mit your bersonal notes, and berhaps 
Franck here vould endorse dem?” 

“I will do more. I will deposit in cash enough 
to cover your share of any reasonable profits 
we might expect from the transaction, subject 
to your order if the shipment fails. Are you 
satisfied?” 

“Vye not?” Breiter’s hands went outward in 
227 


THE RETURN 


a finlike motion of resignation, then came to 
rest with a simultaneous, resounding slap on the 
arms of his chair. “Your vuneral, und you pay 
der undertaker. I ride in der free carriage und 
veep for your foolishness.” Pleased with his 
simile, he rose and toddled chuckling from the 
room. 

That night Mary met her husband in New 
York and they dined at the Manhattan. She 
had always retained a sentiment for the old hotel, 
for it was there they had stopped on first com- 
ing East, in pre-Biltmore days. At the time it 
had been considerably in excess of what they 
could really afford. But Muenster, who was to 
meet some out-of-town men on business, believed 
in always putting his best foot forward — both 
feet, if possible. Hence, the Manhattan. 

This evening Mary joined him in the main 
corridor, shortly before seven. It was unusually 
full of men in uniform, as the streets had been 
throughout the day. They entered the dining 
room, seating themselves at a secluded little table 
next the wall. Here Muenster ordered for them 
both in that rapid, off-hand manner common to 
intimate couples who are sure of each other’s 
likes and dislikes. When the waiter, who moved 
hopelessly as one suffering from fallen arches, 
had disappeared, Mary raised her eyes to Muen- 
ster’s in quick, questioning scrutiny. 

228 


ANOTHER LIGHT THAT FAILED 


“Could you convince them?” she asked. 

“We are to invest our entire net surplus for 
the year,” he assured. “Breiter held out the 
longest, but finally he came ’round.” 

“I’m glad.” Mary’s face flushed with pleas- 
ure. “With Billy going over, it makes me feel 
that we are doing something. And, after all, 
what is money, compared with the sacrifices these 
men are making?” 

For a time she gazed about the room at the 
rapidly filling tables, at over half of which were 
men in khaki, some laughing, others more sub- 
dued. Near by a white-haired old man was din- 
ing with his son. He sat opposite the young fel- 
low in mimic erectness, his eyes very bright and 
blue and proud, though his wrinkled hands trem- 
bled badly as he toyed with his dinner roll. 

“I wonder if this, the parting, isn’t the very 
worst part of it all,” Mary pondered at length. 
“Afterwards there’s the excitement to keep 
one up.” 

“Who knows?” said Muenster abstractedly. 
He turned and gazed irritably in the direction 
in which the waiter had vanished. They were 
infernally slow with those oysters, he reflected. 

“Hello, sis.” 

Mary started at the familiar voice and saw 
Billy bearing down upon them, still a trifle self- 
conscious in his new uniform. He had changed 
229 


THE RETURN 


considerably in the last few months, she swiftly 
noted. The whimsical mouth was set in firmer 
lines; the eyes, though still faintly humorous, 
were more repressed, steadier. 

“Been trying all afternoon to get hold of 
you,” he announced, then nodded affably to 
Muenster. “ ’Phoned out to the house, but they 
said you were in town and not expected back for 
dinner, so I figured it would be the Manhattan 
as usual.” He dropped casually to a chair the 
alert head waiter had provided. 

Excellent service, Muenster reflected, if one 
chanced to be in uniform. Where the devil were 
those oysters, anyhow? Then, his quick eye ap- 
praising the unwrinkled freshness of Billy’s 
khaki, “Ah,” he drawled, “a modern cavalier.” 

“Yes,” admitted Billy. “There’s quite a few 
of us, all told.” 

Muenster’s remark appeared innocent enough 
in itself, yet it rekindled the boy’s intuitive dis- 
like, though he tried to conceal it. After all, he 
redecided, his personal feelings toward Muen- 
ster were no criterion of the man’s real worth. 
He certainly had been kind and devoted to Mary. 

It was Mary who spoke next. “Why didn’t 
you let us know you were coming, Billy?” 

“Didn’t know myself, until the last minute. 
They gave over half of us leave without much 
notice, and the telegraph office was pack jammed. 

230 


ANOTHER LIGHT THAT FAILED 


I’m going to the theater with Louise. Then I’ll 
be out for the night. We can have a talk in the 
morning. My train doesn’t leave until three.” 
Glancing at his watch he rose. “ Sorry to hurry, 
but I’m late already.” 

“Have a good time,” teased Mary. She gave 
him an intimate little smile, the passport of per- 
fect understanding between brother and sister. 
Besides, she knew Louise and liked her. 

“How can I help it, considering who the girl 
is?” Billy laughed back. “See you all later.” 

Mary’s eyes followed his straight young back 
until he disappeared through the doorway. Her 
small, pink nails were buried deep in her palms. 
“That means a few days at best,” she said. “They 
seldom give wholesale leave like this, except just 
before sailing.” Then, as a twisted little smile 
drew at her lips: “But I’m glad that he wants 
to go. Glad and sorry, if you know what I 
mean.” 

* * * * * * * 

One night, shortly after Billy had returned to 
camp, Mary partially awoke. For an interval 
she lay staring drowsily into the familiar shad- 
ows of the room. The night was dark, though 
there was a faint promise of an eventual moon. 
She had about fallen asleep again when from 
the dressing-room beyond came the muffled, 
grinding, whirr of the telephone. As it died 
231 


THE RETURN 


away she heard Muenster rising. There was a 
certain expectant alacrity to his movements. 
Momentarily he bent above her. Again the bell 
rang, louder this time. Very clear it came 
through the quiet house — a long, thrilling ring, 
followed by two short, jerky little appeals. 
Turning, Muenster hurried out into the hall. 
Fitfully for a time she caught his deep voice 
from the room beyond, as she hovered between 
wakefulness and sleep. Then she dozed off. 

Later she again awoke. Muenster had not re- 
turned. Strangely restless she rose, slipped into 
a dressing gown, and, crossing the room, seated 
herself on the shallow window seat, drawing 
deeply at the cool night air. She had slept 
poorly of late. Billy was so continually in her 
thoughts. Had he sailed yet? Where was he, 
and when would she hear? 

Only the night before she had dreamed of him. 
He had seemed to be in a small boat, far out on 
a glassy-looking sea. She was riding overhead 
in an air-plane; Muenster was driving it. As 
they approached she noted that Billy, though in 
uniform, seemed a child again. He was smiling 
up at them with an impudent little grimace. 
Suddenly Muenster had planed low and com- 
menced to drop black-looking objects — bombs, 
she had decided — down upon him. At this Billy 
still smiling had reached to the bottom of the 
232 


ANOTHER LIGHT THAT FAILED 


boat and seized a small paper fan; oddly she 
recognized it as similar to the ones her father 
used to give by way of advertising in their little 
Tacoma pharmacy. As each bomb had fallen 
accurately down, Billy, with a wave of the fan, 
would turn it aside, then laugh up at them. And 
through it all she had seemed to sit, strangely re- 
laxed, powerless to move or to cry out. 

When she awoke her feeling of resentment 
against Muenster had lingered for some time. 
In fact, she had got up and kissed him good- 
night all over again, that she might thoroughly 
forgive him for something he hadn’t done. 

Smiling at the recollection she leaned forward, 
her arms on the sill, and gazed across the dark- 
ened grounds. How quiet and peaceful it was, 
with no sound but the slight rustle of the dry- 
ing leaves, as a faint breeze passed through them, 
and the occasional call of a distant ship. Chanc- 
ing to glance more to the left, she noted a square 
of light outlined upon the drive beneath. Look- 
ing further out and up, she saw it came from an 
attic window. How careless of Hilda! She 
had repeatedly cautioned the girl about those 
upper lights. Then, possibly because something 
of the thrift once so necessary in her father’s 
small pharmacy still lingered, she left the win- 
dow, mounted the stairs, and turned it out. 

233 


THE RETURN 

As she descended she met Muenster on the 
floor below. 

“Where have you been?” he questioned 
shortly. His usually small, shallow gray eyes 
were strangely large and bright; almost circular 
in the flexed steadiness of their stare. 

“The light upstairs. Hilda had forgotten it.” 

“You turned it out?” There was barely con- 
cealed irritation in his tone. 

“Why, yes,” she commenced. Then, as an- 
other thought intervened, “who was it that 
called up a little while ago?” 

“No one. It was a mistake; they had the 
wrong number. You had better go to sleep. 
You will be tired in the morning.” 

As he stood under the yellow glow of the hall 
light, his eyes intently upon her, she sensed in 
his face something she had never before caught. 
“Craftiness” would have been the word, had she 
tried to define it. What had come over her, she 
impatiently wondered? Of course, it was that 
horrible dream that made her feel this way. 
How unfair it was! She moved slowly off. At 
her door she turned and threw him a little smile. 
He stood at the foot of the stairs, stiff, unnat- 
ural, then, recollecting himself, he smiled per- 
functorily in return. 

Entering the darkened room, she relaxed 
wearily upon the bed, her mind inordinately ac- 
234 


ANOTHER LIGHT THAT FAILED 


tive. Countless thoughts rushed through it with 
kaleidoscopic rapidity; then, suddenly, the one 
for which she had been subconsciously groping, 
stood clearly out from all the rest. Why had he 
lied to her just now about the telephone call? 
He had said it was a mistake, yet he had talked 
steadily for — well, five minutes anyway. 

At this she recalled her recent dream with re- 
newed vividness. Every strand of rigging in 
the plane stood out sharply. This was intoler- 
able, she decided, again rising. Were all the 
years they had spent together in perfect confi- 
dence not enough to counteract the transient 
poison of a dream, or to excuse even a lie, if he 
cared to tell one? Probably he had had some 
good reason. If she gave him time he would 
confide in her, when he had thought it all out. 
And so, standing by her bed, she carefully built 
for him one of those moral alibis, with which 
women are so skillful when they care to be; and 
ended by loving him more than ever. 

Her exoneration completed, she turned and, 
with a little sigh, for the second time approached 
the window; then leaned upon the sill. Pres- 
ently, from the room next, so close that it made 
her start, the upstairs telephone again thrilled 
softly. The pulsations were absolutely identical 
to the previous ones. How odd, reflected Mary! 
The ring was similar to some party call, yet 
235 


THE RETURN 


theirs was a private line. Without altering her 
position, she waited. The windows of the two 
rooms were very close and both were open. 
Soon she heard the faint, dry squeak as the re- 
ceiver left the hook, then her husband’s inter- 
rogative “yes,” spoken very softly. 

There followed an interval in which she could 
make out nothing but the metallic vibrations of 
the voice at the other end of the wire. As it 
died away, Muenster spoke. 

“An unavoidable accident. I will turn it on as 
soon as it appears safe.” He paused, as that 
far-off voice clicked indistinctly on. 

“What?” Muenster suddenly cut in. “She 
has already left the dock?” His tones were low 
and hurried. “Very well, I will chance it at 
once. Have the tug signal when the light is 
caught; then I can close it off. It is not safe, I 
tell you.” The receiver dropped into place, a 
chair racked softly; then there was the quiet pad 
of Muenster’s feet as he left the room. 

With a supple, backward fling Mary rose from 
the window-seat and stood for a moment, her 
arms tense and straight at her side. Now that 
things were clearer, some illogical inward force 
was keeping her from believing them. No, it 
couldn’t, it mustn’t be! 

As she stood, the door opened, silhouetting 
Muenster’s tall, spare form against the light of 
236 


ANOTHER LIGHT THAT FAILED 


the hall. He entered slowly, accustoming him- 
self to the darkness, and moved toward her bed. 
Finding it unoccupied, he peered vaguely about, 
then pressed on the lights. Briefly they stood, 
both fighting for a control they did not feel. 
Muenster was the first to speak. He resorted 
to one of those pointless remarks so common to 
pregnant situations. 

“You are not asleep?” 

“No,” said Mary evenly, “I am not.” 

A pause fell between them. Intuitively Muen- 
ster felt that the situation was still within his 
control. The years passed so tranquilly together 
had accustomed him to Mary’s tacit compliance; 
she had never questioned his lead, and yet to- 
night — somehow? Impatiently he shook off the 
doubt. She appeared so small, so dependent 
and fragile, in her blue peignoir. Again, habit 
was a strong factor, he reasoned. And had she 
not always been his to command? Women more 
vital than she were often clay in the hands of 
men they loved. What was the matter with him, 
anyhow? She might not have heard all; he had 
spoken quietly at the ’phone. 

He continued to study her, the hard coldness 
of his mind missing nothing. Whatever she 
knew, clearly she did not loathe him, he decided. 
In the warmth of her eyes there still was love, 
237 


THE RETURN 

or he was no judge — and a judge he considered 
himself. 

At length she spoke. “This can’t go on, Carl. 
You are too fine; I love you too much. Tell me 
it is all some horrible mistake.” 

The abject appeal in her tones reassured him. 
“I cannot turn back,” he said. 

A score of arguments flooded her mind; each 
was forceful and reasonable, but she could not 
martial them. Appeals to honor, loyalty to the 
land that had given him his chance, his love of 
her — all dissolved unuttered. Then, possibly 
because she was a woman, she resorted to the 
personal plea. 

“Think of Billy. Probably it is his ship,” she 
said softly. 

“It cannot be helped; war is war.” 

“No, not war. This is murder.” On her face 
was a repressed, noncommittal look. “Is there 
nothing I can say?” she went on. 

“Nothing,” he replied, and she knew that he 
meant it. 

“Then I shall call for help?” 

“Hardly that,” he denied brusquely. “Be- 
sides, if I let you, it would arrive too late.” 

Haltingly she groped toward his dresser 
next the wall. His military brushes lay in their 
usual disorder upon its top. With fluttering 
238 


ANOTHER LIGHT THAT FAILED 


hands, she arranged them carefully side by side, 
then stooped, and drew open a lower drawer. 
In it was a suit of his pajamas — blue they were; 
beneath lay some sets of union suits, winter ones 
she had that day taken from his trunk. There 
was something intimate and demoralizing in 
their soft wool that made her fragile fingers 
quiver, but she kept on. 

Muenster with difficulty repressed his amuse- 
ment when eventually she turned, for, held 
nervously in her hand, was his revolver. It was 
large and cumbersome with a wooden stock and 
an over-long barrel, and it tugged, absurdly 
heavy, at her slim arm. The shrinking manner 
with which she handled it, the abject pathos of 
her face were ludicrous. All this Muenster ac- 
curately noted. He was steering his course by 
her eyes and, though brimming with tears, they 
still held love. With a brief, caustic smile he 
started for the stairs and commenced to ascend. 

“Carl, Carl, please. Don’t go up. I mean it, 
I do. I can.” 

He paused and glanced back over his shoulder. 
She had followed him out into the hall and stood 
at the base of the stairs slightly swaying. 

“Be sensible,” he said curtly, as though ad- 
dressing a child. 

At the sound of his voice a great weakness 
239 


THE RETURN 


passed through her. The hallway grew shadowy 
and vague. The pounding of her heart echoed 
dully in her head. To her it was like the pulsing 
engines of a ship. A ship. Yes, Billy was on a 
ship. Suddenly she seemed to see him. Not the 
Billy of a few days past, in his new khaki, but 
the little fellow of old, with the big, humorous, 
impudent mouth; the little fellow she had loved 
and cared for. 

Muenster was moving slowly up. Her eyes 
clung to his narrow, tight-shouldered back that 
night upon night had rested in the curve of her 
arm. She tried to cry out, but all her nerves 
were tugging at her throat, stilling her voice. 
Automatically she half raised her arm, then de- 
spondently let it fall to her side. No, she 
couldn’t. His very unconcern was protecting 
him; the sight of him was too much. 

Suddenly she reached to the wall. There was 
something chemic, not volitional, to the move- 
ment; then as her fingers found the switch the 
hall slid into darkness. There! That was bet- 
ter; she couldn’t see; it might be any one now. 
She dropped to her knees, her eyes closed, and 
aimed vaguely. A little lance of flame cut the 
the shadows, followed by a dull report that died 
echoing away. 

Hours later they found her. A small, frail 
240 


ANOTHER LIGHT THAT FAILED 


woman with compassionate eyes bending above 
the crumpled form of a man. The golden hair 
he had once compared to sunlight, fighting its 
way through mist, had loosened and fell softly 
about his face. 


THE END 


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